IHN 64 
C883 
I Copy 1 



money 



or 



MEN 




Copyright^ .. 



CfiRORIGHT DEPOSIT! 



money or MEN? 



By Bruce V. Crandall 



Price $1.35 Postpaid 



Railway Educational Press, Inc. 

Fourteen East Jackson Boulevard 
Chicago - - Illinois 



y^fr* 



Co. 



%$ 



Copyright 1919 

Railway Educational Press, Inc. 
Chicago Illinois 



M -5 1919 



©CU525754 



WHERE WE STAND 

The world war has forced upon us as an 
after effect, the seeming necessity for an im- 
mediate solution of many problems. No 
great problem can be instantly solved. Un- 
due haste may mean the wrong answer in- 
stead of the right one. Mistakes will be cost- 
ly and every individual will have a share in 
footing the bill. 

We all have a part to play, every man of 
us. No one can escape. We must be patient, 
studious, analytical, reasoning, to the end 
that we can think clearly, reason logically 
and act for the greatest good to the greatest 
number. Selfishness is the direct result of 
the necessity for self-preservation; yet sel- 
fishness contains the germ of self-destruc- 
tion. 

Co-operation or the Golden Rule — means 
the ultimate right solution of our problems. 

Special or local problems will never be 
finally disposed of until basic problems find 
their solution. And we must remember that, 
in our present world, we never find the 
complete solution. We only make progress, 



more or less rapid, toward a never-reached 
perfection. 

We ask, for the contents of this volume, 
not the blind acceptance of what is written, 
but a thought for basic problems of existence. 

If we can but get the great majority of 
workers to reading — and thinking — these 
problems will be solved. 

So if you approve of this volume, you will 
be helping this great work by recommending 
this book to all worth-while MEN. 
Yours fraternally, 

Bruce V. Crandall. 



Chapter I 

Money First 

"The Almighty Dollar, that great object of 
universal devotion throughout our land." — 
Washington Irving. 

THE ash man — the man who collects 
the ashes and garbage in any com- 
munity is not looked upon as being the 
leading citizen. Whatever our work, be it 
of hand or brain, we feel that we are several 
notches higher in the social scale than the 
man who earns his living by carting away 
the ashes. There is a feeling, however, that 
he really earns his living. Those of us who 
have taken care of our stoves or furnaces are 
very positive of the fact that the ash man 
earns his living. 

This book is not to be a story about an ash 
man but if it had not been for one particular 
ash man, perhaps the book would not be 
written- 

The writer lives in a little village just out- 
side of a big city. The other day a fast 
passenger train hit the ash man as he was 
driving over the railroad crossing, and, as I 
first got the news, it wrecked his wagon, 

5 



money or MEN? 



killed his horses and injured him. I learned, 
at the same time that he had been taken to a 
hospital and it was expected that he would 
recover. 

A few days later, I heard that the ash 
man was dead. I learned later that the rail- 
road company's claim department had got- 
ten the ash man to sign a legal form of 
settlement releasing the railroad corporation 
from any and all further damages or obliga- 
tions for the pitiful sum of $100. 

It is true that I was not an eye witness to 
the occurrence as I have related it. My testi- 
mony would not be accepted as conclusive 
testimony in a court. I am simply repeating 
the news as I heard it and I have every rea- 
son for believing it. 

This incident is given simply to show this, 
that the value of the ash man was placed at 
$100. If it had been my life, the value 
would have been higher. If it had been the 
life of any one of a number of my neigh- 
bors, the value would be considerably higher. 
The ash man is dead and forgotten except 
by the family, if he had one, which was 
dependent upon him. 

The manner of his death and the low value 
placed upon his life, suggests a question. 



money or MEN? 



What is the measure of value in our modern 
life? Which is regarded as of true value, 
money or Men? Judging from this one in- 
stance, money is evidently first. 

I am not going to give a long list of 
statistics to prove the fact that each year 
sees a long and deplorable list of deaths and 
accidents due to preventable causes. The 
industry of railroading is no more guilty of 
such accidents than other industries. 

In fact, the " Safety First" movement 
started on the railroads and we shall see, as 
we follow through the pages of this book, 
that the railroads in a way are victims of 
circumstance, as are we all. That is, that 
our social condition is finally responsible for 
such accidents. If public opinion were edu- 
cated and aroused to a point where such 
accidents would not be tolerated, their num- 
ber would be enormously decreased. 

We find preventable accidents occurring 
every day in the streets of our large cities, in 
our mines, in our manufacturing establish- 
ments, in our lumber yards and — even on 
the farms. True some of these accidents are 
due to carelessness ; but a close study of pre- 
ventable accidents shows that a very large 
proportion occur because, from a money 

7 



money or MEN? 



standpoint, it is cheaper to kill a man occa- 
sionally than to spend the money necessary 
to prevent accidents. 

In the case of the ash man, it cost the 
railroad less money to kill a man once in a 
while than to raise that particular railroad 
crossing above the street grade. Accidents 
at this particular place are very few. 

Railroad grade crossings are eliminated 
when enough people are killed annually that 
damage claims are costing more than the ex- 
pense of raising the railroad tracks above the 
street level. It is profitable to raise the 
tracks above the street level, when the annual 
expense for accidents exceeds the annual ex- 
pense of raising the tracks. Money is then 
spent to save money. The first considera- 
tion then is not men but money. 

"Money first" is responsible for the wage 
question between capital and the worker. 
Money must beget money. Money must 
have its interest, even its usury. It must 
have a reasonable profit. Further, an un- 
reasonable profit — huge profits — and at the 
expense of men ; and when we speak of men 
we include women and children. 

Human life, the life of man is protected 
when it is cheaper from a money standpoint. 



money or MEN? 



It is only when preventable accidents become 
so numerous as to arouse public opinion that 
the Government steps in and compels safety. 

I am not in this chapter attempting to 
advance any argument and I am not here 
urging just what shall be done to lessen 
the number of preventable accidents. This 
phase of the subject will be taken up in 
another part of the book. What I do want 
to drive home is the fact that we have pro- 
gressed only this far in our civilization ; if we 
are honest with ourselves, we must admit 
that society has not progressed far enough 
to place men ahead of money. 

I did not intend to give in this chapter 
any other illustration beyond that of the ash 
man, in support of my contention that 
money is first. But I want to show that 
another writer has followed the same line of 
thought. 

In a very remarkable book brought out a 
few years ago (published in 1907), entitled 
"Christianity and the Social Crisis," there 
appears the following, which I will submit 
without comment. 

"We have never yet dared to get the facts 
for our country, except in mining and rail- 
roading ; but it is safe to say that no country 



money or MEN? 



is so reckless of accidents as our own. It is 
asserted that one in eight of our people dies 
a violent death."*********** 

"It is dividends against human lives. All 
great corporations have agents whose sole 
business it is to look after accidents and see 
that the company suffers as little loss as 
possible through the claims of the injured. 
Yet many are injured in railway work and 
elsewhere because long hours in service of 
those same corporations had so worn them 
down that their mind was numb and they 
were unable to look out for themselves." 

^ ^ ^ .& ,& ,2|£ .&. .& £|£ £j£ £fe 

"An elderly workingman, a good 
Christian man, was run down by a street 
car in New York City. His leg was badly 
bruised. He was taken to an excellent hos- 
pital near by."*********** 

"The agent of the street car company 
promptly called on the family and offered 
$100 in settlement of all damages. I saw 
the manager on their behalf. He explained 
courteously that since the case resulted in 
death, $5,000 would be the maximum 
allowed by New York laws. And since the 
man's earnings had been small and he had 
but few years of earning capacity before 

10 



money or MEN? 



him, the amount of damage allowed by the 
courts in his case would be slight. The suf- 
fering to the affections of the family did not 
enter into the legal aspect of the matter. 
The company paid its counsel by the year. 
If the family sued and was successful in the 
lower court, the manager frankly said they 
would carry it to the higher courts and could 
wear out the resources of the family at slight 
expense to the corporation. The president, 
a benevolent and venerable-looking gentle- 
man, explained to me that the combined dis- 
tance traveled by their cars daily would 
reach from New York to the Rocky Moun- 
tains. People were constantly being run 
over, and the company could not afford to be 
more generous. The widow concluded to 
submit to the terms offered. The $100 was 
brought to her in the usual form of single 
dollar bills to make it look like vast wealth 
to a poor person. The daughter suffered 
very serious organic injury through the 
shock received when her father had disap- 
peared from the hospital, and this was prob- 
ably one cause for her death in child-birth 
several years later. 

"The officers of the hospitals and the 
officers of the street railway company were 

11 



money or .MEN? 



not bad men. Their point of view and their 
habits of mind are entirely comprehensible. 
I feel no certainty that I should not act in 
the same way if I had been in their place long 
enough. But the impression remained that 
our social machinery is almost as blindly 
cruel as its steel machinery, and that it runs 
over the life of a poor man with scarcely a 

• ? ? ?ff. ^ fV. &. >V. & sle. &. & .'fl'. &. 

"In a few years all of our restless and 
angry hearts will be quiet in death, but those 
who come after us will live in the world 
which our sins have blighted or which our 
love of right has redeemed. Let us do our 
thinking on these great questions, not with 
our eyes fixed on our bank account, but with 
a wise outlook on the fields of the future and 
with the consciousness that the spirit of the 
Eternal is seeking to distil from our lives 
some essence of righteousness before they 

5 3 *}f. &£. ■ v l / , ^ 3fc &. ife ."fr. ?V. .'V. ."fr, 



"Education is the only interest worthy the 
deep, controlling anxiety of the thought- 
ful man/' — Wendell Phillips. 

12 



Chapter II 

Men Second 

"An honest man's the noblest work of God." — 
Pope. 

SOME writer has said " Industry and 
Commerce are good. They serve the 
need of men." We might change this 
phrase slightly to get it more clearly in mind. 
What I think the writer really intended to 
say, was "Industry and commerce are good 
IF they serve the need of men." If in- 
dustry, if commerce, if business were today 
serving the needs of men, there would be no 
necessity for this book nor for this chapter. 
"Men second" would not exist. 

Not that men are always given second 
consideration. But, no thoughtful or un- 
biased thinker would claim for a moment 
that men are given first consideration in the 
majority of instances. Our whole social 
order is based on money, on a profit system 
to a very large extent. It is a condition for 
which society at large and not any one class 
is to blame. This condition will be changed 
by the attitude of society generally — 
through education. 

13 



money or MEN? 



I remember very well the first sale in my 
first business venture. This first sale was to 
a man, whom we will call Andrews. The 
amount was about $60. I made my sale, 
rendered my bill and kept rendering it 
month after month, but did not get my 
money. Some ten or eleven months after- 
wards, I received a notice from a creditor's 
committee that had been appointed by some 
of the larger creditors of the Andrews Com- 
pany. This statement set forth briefly that 
the Andrews Company was in bad financial 
condition and that it seemed wise before 
taking any radical steps to have a meeting 
of all creditors and discuss ways and means 
for getting the money which was due. 

This was my first bad debt, my first expe- 
rience with a meeting of a creditor's com- 
mittee. The day that the committee was to 
meet, Mr. Andrews came into my office, told 
me his story and asked me if I would attend 
the creditor's meeting and have something 
to say. 

It is nearly twenty years since I sat in 
that committee meeting, the first one of its 
kind that I ever attended but not the last. 
There were some fifty or sixty creditors 
seated around the walls of a large room. In 

14 



money or MEN? 



the center was a flat top desk and at the desk 
sat a man, I should judge about 60 or 65. 
He was a prosperous looking man, a success- 
ful business man with rather a kindly coun- 
tenance. I learned, as the meeting pro- 
gressed, that he was the largest creditor, 
holding the notes of the Andrews Company 
for something like $8,000. He presently 
called the meeting to order, explained the 
financial condition of the Andrews Com- 
pany, and said that he would be glad to hear 
from any of the creditors who had anything 
to say. 

Almost immediately one of those present 
jumped up and began a most severe criti- 
cism of Mr. Andrews, making a fiery speech 
denouncing him. He argued that the only 
thing to do, and what Mr. Andrews and the 
company both deserved to have done to 
them, was to put the concern immediately 
into the hands of the receiver, and due 
processes of law be gone through with. 

There was a spirit of vindictiveness and 
animus running through all that he had to 
say. He implied that the greatest crime 
possible for a man to commit was to lose 
money for some one. As I remember it, the 
Andrews Company owed this creditor about 

15 



money or MEN? 



$430. This first speaker consumed a good 
deal of time, but when he was finally through 
another creditor, who had been impatiently 
waiting, jumped upon his feet and made 
practically the same arguments and from the 
same viewpoint. In fact, he made a formal 
motion that the creditors as a body, hire a 
lawyer and wind up the Andrews Company 
forthwith. 

By this time I had the conviction, as he 
talked, that from a business viewpoint the 
greatest crime a man could commit was to 
lose money for another man. And that it 
made no difference how he lost it. 

It was all a new experience to me. The 
feeling that swayed the meeting was strange 
to me. I did not fully comprehend the situa- 
tion. However, I was very much interested 
in watching the man who sat at the desk, — 
the largest creditor. 

When the first individual began speak- 
ing, and as he began to warm up to his sub- 
ject and expressed himself somewhat vio- 
lently in regard to Mr. Andrews and his 
company, this largest creditor began slowly 
"slinking" down in his chair. Lower and 
lower he went until it seemed that he was, 
as the expression goes, sitting on the "back 

16 



money or MEN' 



of his neck." He had absolutely nothing to 
say, his face was expressionless but his posi- 
tion in his chair was expressive. When the 
first man had finished speaking, he retained 
his position on the "back of his neck" while 
the second man harangued the creditors. 

I was young and inexperienced. I had not 
become calloused through years of the wear- 
ing of business upon me. Then as I looked at 
Mr. Andrews, the debtor, his head bowed be- 
tween his hands, and watched the creditors 
around the room, all with more or less of an 
indifferent attitude — it seemed to me that 
somehow we were not having fair play. I 
have made a good many public speeches 
since that day but I doubt if I ever put more 
mental and spiritual energy into anything 
than I did the day that I talked to that 
creditor's committee. Scarcely had the sec- 
ond speaker started toward his seat when I 
was on my feet. 

As I remember it now after a lapse of 
years, I spoke about as follows : 

"Mr. Chairman and members of the Cred- 
itor's Committee: 

"I am only a very small creditor. The 
Andrews Company owes me a sum of money 
that hardly seems worth mentioning when 

17 



money or MEN? 



placed beside the amount that is owing to the 
chairman of this committee. But, I haven't 
very much of this world's goods, I have only 
been in business for myself, and a small busi- 
ness at that, for the matter of a few months 
and a little money means a great deal to me. 
"I cannot help but feel, however, that we 
are taking the wrong attitude in this matter. 
From what the first two speakers have said, 
it would seem to me that they look upon 
Mr. Andrews as a crook and a criminal. I 
have always found Mr. Andrews a very fine 
sort of a man, I don't believe that he has 
ever been guilty of a dishonest practice. He 
has attempted to run this business to the 
very best of his ability. He probably has 
made some mistakes — we all do, but it would 
seem to me that it has not been so much his 
fault as a matter of adverse conditions. As 
I understand it, if we take legal action we 
are only going to get a small percentage of 
our money; whereas if we devise some way 
of helping Mr. Andrews, we may get all that 
is due us. 

"I know I speak from the viewpoint of 
youth and with but very little experience. 
Possibly that is the reason why I speak as I 
do. But it seems to me that a man should 

18 



money or MEN? 



be given more consideration than simply 
mere money. There is something better in 
life than seeing if we can squeeze the last 
cent out of a man, discard him and throw 
him to one side. 

"Most of us here have been doing business 
with Mr. Andrews for a good many years. 
We have found him honest and fair in his 
dealings. There has been no intention on his 
part to defraud anyone. As a matter of 
fact, some of us have made considerable 
money out of the business dealings that we 
have had with his firm. We certainly should 
not forget this, even if we do forget in busi- 
ness any moral considerations or the fact that 
the most of us profess the brotherhood of 
man even if we do not always follow it out 
in our actions." 

I couldn't help but watch the principal 
creditor as I talked. The last speaker had 
left him sitting on the back of his neck. But 
as I talked I noticed he began sliding up- 
ward until by the time I got this far in my 
little speech he was sitting almost upright in 
his chair. 

I went on to say that so far as I was con- 
cerned, Mr. Andrews could have the $60 
that he owed me and welcome. I was glad 

19 



money or MEN? 



to do that much to help him out. Sixty dol- 
lars, while of value to me and my little busi- 
ness, would not make or break me, "I can 
go on," I said, "and continue to do business 
and lose the money, while if I take the 
money under the conditions proposed by the 
two previous speakers, I may not lose in my 
business but I stand a good chance of losing 
my self-respect." 

"Why can't we appoint a small commit- 
tee among the creditors and see if we can't 
find some way of helping Mr. Andrews out ; 
help him continue in a business which will 
eventually be profitable to us as well as to 
him." 

Then closing my remarks I addressed my- 
self direct to the chairman calling him by 
name, his name has slipped my mind in the 
passing of the years. 

"Mr. Chairman," I said, "I know that the 
Andrews Company owes you several thou- 
sands of dollars. I know that it is regarded 
as good business that you should collect this 
money; I am not asking you or any other 
creditor here in this room to waive his rights. 
But so far as I am concerned, Mr. Andrews 
can have my sixty dollars right now. I would 
like to do just that much to help him out. 

20 



money or MEN? 



"I am not asking you to do the same. But 
you are a business man of far more experi- 
ence than am I, and you ought to be able to 
find some way of helping Mr. Andrews and 
his company make money, in order to pay to 
you and the other creditors what he owes. 
I will make a motion that the chairman 
appoint a small committee to take this matter 
under consideration, with the idea that we 
will find some way of helping Mr. Andrews 
and at the same time help ourselves." 

A big fat good natured man (and who 
shall ever say that fat men are not of value 
in human society?), jumped to his feet and 
said, "Say! young fellow, you're all right, 
and I will second that motion and I will see 
that it is carried through." And he looked 
around with a good natured winning smile 
at the creditors assembled. Before he sat 
down the chairman had put the motion and 
it was carried with a shout unanimously, 
even the two speakers who preceded me join- 
ing in. 

I am not relating this incident as some- 
thing to my credit, though half of the men 
in the room came up afterwards and shook 
hands with me and said that that was the 
thing to do and they all felt better. What 

21 



money or MEN? 



I have in mind is simply this. Our attitude 
in business is generally money first, men 
second. Yet I doubt very much if the aver- 
age man wants it that way. He is rather a 
victim of circumstances, a product of his en- 
vironment. In this our attitude toward 
money or men, we are all of us at fault, to a 
greater or lesser degree. The pressure to 
obtain a mere existence, let alone a living, is a 
tremendous one. It is felt by all of us, work- 
ers with hand or head. We are compelled 
to give so much time, so much energy, so 
much of thought, so much attention merely 
to providing the necessary clothes to wear, 
the roof to cover our heads and sufficient 
food to maintain the life of our bodies, that 
it seems that everything conspires to compel 
us to consider money first. 

The very law of self-preservation drives 
us continually toward this attitude. Our 
society is a competitive one. Competition is 
so severe that we have neither the time nor 
energy to give to developing a spirit of co- 
operation. Yet co-operation will produce 
for every individual a great deal more than 
our competitive system can ever produce for 
any one individual. 

We quoted in the first part of this chapter 
22 



money or MEN? 



from a writer the words " Industry and com- 
merce are good." Let us not change this to 
"Industry and Commerce are God/' There 
is a tendency through force of circumstances 
to make industry and commerce, or its ex- 
pression "money," a god. So long as money 
is put first, of necessity man comes second. 

Man was not made for money, rather 
money was made for man. Money, which is 
an expression of wealth, has been created by 
labor. It should be in the hands of those 
who create it, just in proportion to the quan- 
tity and quality of labor performed. 

We would have a more equal distribution 
of wealth or money except for the fact that 
money has in so many instances been man- 
ipulated, not earned. And through this man- 
ipulation money has come under the control 
of a few. They have obtained it through 
shrewdness or unusual ability; not in work 
but in manipulating. This concentration of 
large amounts of money, in the hands of the 
few, very naturally has produced a society 
where money is first and men second. 

"Education is the only interest worthy the 
deep, controlling anociety of the thoughtful 
man." — Wendell Phillips. 

23 



Chapter III 
Money — Historically 

"Money was made, not to command our will, 
"But all our lawful pleasures to fulfill." 

— Abraham Cowley. 

FOR a proper understanding of money, 
what it is, what it is used for, what it 
should be used for; we must take the 
subject up historically. Beginning with the 
first use, we must show its growth, its devel- 
opment, its relationship to human society, 
and what its relation should be for the pro- 
motion of human welfare. We are discuss- 
ing the question of money or men, and we 
must therefore discuss money by itself as 
well as money in its relation to men. 

Money is a medium of exchange. It is 
something of value which is convenient to 
use in buying or selling. It may be a piece 
of metal, gold or silver or copper. It may 
be coin or stamps issued by the Government. 
It may be a written or stamped promise, 
certificate or order, such as our Government 
bank notes. Whatever it is, it is a recog- 
nized medium of exchange. 

Among primitive nations or barbarous 

24 



money or MEN? 



people, money or a medium of exchange 
on which values are reckoned may be copper 
rings, gold dust, salt, sheep or many other 
things. 

The study of money naturally leads us to 
a study of capital. Further along we will 
discuss capital, its beginning and growth. 
And while capital may mean many things 
besides money, still the value of capital is 
measured in terms of money. 

It would be interesting if space permitted 
to trace the evolution of money. Starting 
with barbarism and savagery money has de- 
veloped through primitive forms of organ- 
ized society, on through to semi-civilization, 
and thus down to the present time. Before 
we had money savage races traded with each 
other by means of "barter or exchange." 

The needs or wants of primitive people 
were few indeed. It was only as society 
grew and developed that any need was felt 
for a convenient medium of exchange, such 
as is now found in what we term money. 
The savage lived from the products of his 
bow and arrow, from the fruits and vege- 
tables that grew wild, or from the fish that 
he caught in the rivers or lakes. 

Each man at first probably made his own 

25 



money or MEN? 



bows and arrows for hunting the animals of 
the forest. And we can imagine that one 
of the first incidents of barter and exchange 
was when some skilled savage hunter, with 
his stomach full and some spare time, turned 
his attention to making a better bow and 
better arrows. He became interested in his 
work and proceeded to make more of these 
primitive weapons than he needed for his 
own use. 

Experience is a great teacher and the 
practice of making these same weapons made 
him a skilled workman. Some of his fellow 
tribesmen admired, and possibly envied the 
bows and arrows that he had made. At the 
same time that this man was becoming a 
skilled arrow maker, possibly some other 
man of the tribe, by nature more interested 
in fishing, was catching more fish than he 
could eat. Nothing more natural than that 
the arrow maker and the fisherman should 
exchange the product of their skill and labor. 
So the arrow maker traded an arrow for a 
fish. So, "barter and exchange," the fore- 
runner of money, had its beginning in the 
far-off ages of the antiquity of man. We 
can well imagine that arrows could have be- 

;>3 



money or MEN? 



come the medium of exchange or the money 
of that time of long ago. 

An arrow maker, by skill and industry, 
could build up a stock of arrows. And in 
this accumulation he became possessed of 
capital. And it is capital that interests us 
now, not merely money. 

The increase of capital or of wealth in a 
community, means the progress of that 
community. The manner of the increase of 
wealth has also a profound effect upon a na- 
tion. For instance, Spain, which was the 
richest, the leading nation of the world at 
one time, obtained its wealth through gold 
taken from the Incas, not through the indus- 
try and toil of its people. 

So the power and wealth of Spain de- 
clined, because its foundation was not the 
enterprise and industry of its people. For 
people to make any advance in the arts or 
the industries, and in the comforts of life, 
they must produce more than they use. This 
means that capital will be created — but not 
necessarily for the benefit of the few. 

Capital is sometimes in fact often treat- 
ed, as antagonistic to labor. But we must re- 
member that in reality it is the accumulated 
savings of labor and the profits accruing 

27 



money or MEN? 



from labor that produce wealth and capital. 
We must distinguish capital from money. 
Wealth may be in many other things than 
money. But modern usage treats capital as 
meaning the command of money; because 
money is the ordinary form of capital at the 
present time. 

We will probably be able to get a clearer 
idea of the meaning of capital and its ex- 
pression as money, if we use a commonplace 
illustration. Take for instance, the prim- 
itive farmer in ancient times, or the pioneers 
w r ho formed the settlements in the forests of 
our own new world. Here we find labor be- 
ing turned to capital. The land was there 
as it is today, but without value. The forest 
had to be removed and the ground cultiva- 
ted. Through years of hard labor, a man 
and his family cleared a few acres of ground. 

The forest supplied them with fire wood 
for warmth and gave them comfort in the 
homes which they had built from lumber out 
of these same trees. Tilling the soil from 
year to year provided them with food, and 
also with coarse homespun clothing. Grad- 
ually the acres of forests were turned into 
acres of productive farm lands. The man 
had turned the surplus of his labor, over and 

28 



money or MEN? 



above what he needed for food and clothing 
and shelter, into capital; something which 
finally came to have a money value. 

As the community grew, other industries 
became necessary besides that of farming. 
The mill was built where the wheat was 
turned into flour. The blacksmith at the 
four corners became a familiar sight. Some 
man gave his entire time to the making of 
boots. Money as a convenient medium of 
exchange and as representing real wealth 
and capital, was necessary for the growth of 
the community. It was recognized as neces- 
sary to its prosperity and development. A 
little bit later came the general store; and 
many of our readers may remember the time 
when they took a dozen eggs to town as pay- 
ment for a piece of cloth or for some coffee 
or tea. An egg was money. It was a me- 
dium of exchange of recognized value. 

We do not want to go too far in this dis- 
cussion of the question of money or capital 
historically. What we do want to do is to 
emphasize the fact that all wealth, all money 
is the product of labor. The ownership of 
capital or money may be obtained without 
labor — through clever business practices, 
through lucky circumstances, through in- 

29 



money or MEN? 



herited wealth or through manipulation of 
money in a way which may be legally right 
but morally wrong. 

Money and the capital which it represents 
is the product of all men, of all ages and 
should be for the service of all men of this 
and following ages. 

Aristotle, the ancient Greek, in speaking 
of money "condemns it as vicious, holding 
that money is naturally barren and that to 
make money breed money, is preposterous 
and a perversion of the end of its institution, 
which he declared was to serve as a medium 
of exchange and not for the purposes of in- 
crease." 

Money originally came into use as a mat- 
ter of convenience to man. It was not some- 
thing that was invented for the purpose of 
creating power for the few. We all appre- 
ciate full well the fact that today the posses- 
sion of money means the possession of pow- 
er. Money has been protected in civilized 
countries because it represented capital, and 
capital in turn represented property. 

Our civilization has grown up based on a 
proper and due regard for property rights. 

We can see very easily how this has come 
about. When family life began with prim- 

30 



money or MEN? 



itive men, the human race took its first step 
in the direction which led to the making of 
nations. We must have had at first the 
family clan, then two family clans joined 
together, making the beginning of the tribe. 
Such tribes at first probably had no per- 
manent dwelling place, made no attempt to 
found a settled community. 

Even in the tilling of the soil, man at first 
led a nomadic or wandering life. We find 
this phase of racial experience repeated in 
the fife of the African savage of today. The 
small tribe builds its village of flimsy, tem- 
porary huts, tills the soil for a season or two, 
and then moves on. Property rights and the 
protection of them mean nothing to peoples 
in that stage of development. 

However, when we finally reach a period 
in man's history where the tribe settled down 
to a permanent abiding place, became tillers 
of the soil and erected permanent buildings 
— then, naturally, property rights came to 
be recognized. Without such recognition, 
civilization would never have become stabil- 
ized. A man would have had no incentive 
to clear a piece of ground, erect a permanent 
home and buildings for his crops, unless he 
could continue from year to year in the use 
and enjoyment of them. 

31 



money or MEN? 



Of course, such rights were maintained at 
first through the ability to defend them 
against all aggressors. 

At first there was a community of interest 
within the tribe. A strong tribe defended 
itself and its possessions from its enemies; 
and through this ability to defend itself, 
came to force recognition of the rights of 
property so far as the tribe was concerned. 

A community following agricultural pur- 
suits and located permanently made it pos- 
sible for each man's knowledge and ability 
to grow. This led to the recognition of each 
man's property rights. Property was cap- 
ital, and as capital came to be represented 
in money, for reasons of convenience, capital 
and money came to have the same protection 
afforded it as had been afforded the owner- 
ship of property. 

It is easy to appreciate the wisdom and 
desirability of protecting property rights, 
capital and money in early society. But this 
protection to money in the modern indus- 
trial world has become a menace to man him- 
self. This is a real danger to a great ma- 
jority of men. The laws which formerly 
protected property and money for the ben- 
efit of men, have finally worked out to the 

32 



money or MEN? 



disadvantage of the many and to the ad- 
vantage of the few. 

Money is a good deal like fire, "A good 
servant but a bad master." The concentra- 
tion of wealth or money in the hands of the 
few, whether used for good purposes or bad, 
is a menace to the many. 

If every man could obtain only so much 
as he actually earned by his own labor 
(mental or muscle, or both) there would not 
be any great concentration of wealth. 

If we can create conditions such that each 
man will get only what he actually earns, 
the problem will be peaceably solved. These 
conditions can be created by educating all 
workers to the necessity for taking an in- 
terests in this question; and exerting their 
influence, which is tremendously powerful 
if properly organized and controlled. 



"Education is the only interest worthy the 
deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful 
man." — Wendell Phillips. 

33 



Chapter IV 

Men — Historically 

"In a word, we may gather out of history a 
policy no less wise than eternal ; by the compari- 
son and application of other men's forepassed 
miseries with our own like errors and ill deserv- 
ings." — Walter Raleigh. 

OUR minds can hardly grasp the vast 
period of years of man's known his- 
tory. Over 500,000 years ago, man 
unknowingly began to leave some traces be- 
hind him. 

Scientific investigation traces back man 
for 500,000 years and more. It is true that 
the traces left become very faint as we fol- 
low them down through the years and for 
centuries they are entirely erased. 

Scientific men in their researches have dug 
down many feet through the different layers 
or strata of the earth, in search of the 
ancient records of prehistoric man. Each 
stratum tells its own story of its own period. 
We learn about the men of the old stone age 
from the weapons and implements of stone 
left behind them, buried deep under the soil 
of modern times. We find the bones of these 
men. And as we go deeper we find the bones 

34 



money or MEN? 



of other races of men and animals. Finally, 
when we dig deep enough, we find only re- 
mains of animal existence which shows that 
animals evidently preceded man. 

In this study of men — historically, I want 
to consider quite at length statements of 
some leading scientists. 

About seven years ago the skull of a human 
being was dug up from a gravel bed in a 
farm close to Piltdown Commons, Sussex, 
England. This skull has been named the 
"Piltdown Skull." From a book by Dr. 
Arthur Keith, on the "Antiquity of Man," 
I take the following information: In the 
same gravel bed in which was found this 
human skull was also found a part of the 
remains of a mastodon — a primitive form of 
elephant which is known to have existed 
some 900,000 years ago. "In this same loca- 
tion was found remains of a type of ele- 
phant that is often found in Indian deposits 
of the Pliocene period (about 500,000 years 
ago), but never before found in western 
Europe. The shallow pocket of gravel at 
Piltdown, Sussex, yielded not only a new 
form of man but an elephant which was 
new to the fauna of ancient England." 
* * * "The animal remains indicated that 

35 



money or MEN? 



the bottom layer of gravel was laid down in 
the Pliocene period — a very remote age, if 
we try to count by years." * * * "A great 
company assembled in the rooms of the 
Geological Society of London on the even- 
ing of December 18, 1912, to receive the first 
authentic account of the discovery of Pilt- 
down. 

"An unknown phase in the early his- 
tory of humanity was to be revealed. A rev- 
elation of that kind stirs the interest of many 
men and draws them from their studies and 
laboratories to breathe the heated atmosphere 
of over-crowded meeting rooms. The vari- 
ous fragments of the skull had been pieced 
together, the missing parts had been filled 
in, a complete skull was thus brought before 
the meeting. It was quite plain to all 
assembled that the skull thus reconstructed 
by Dr. Smith Woodward was a strange 
blend of man and ape. At last it seemed 
the missing form — the link which early fol- 
lowers of Darwin had searched for- — had 
really been discovered." * * * 

"We may in the present state of our 
knowledge suppose him to refer the Pilt- 
down race to a time which is removed about 
a half million years from the present. Be- 

36 



money or MEN? 



yond any question, the Piltdown skull repre- 
sents the most ancient human remains yet 
found in England." * * * 

"The human remains lay in the most an- 
cient gravel deposit. Since the Piltdown man 
lived then, the great expanse of gravel meas- 
uring nearly 100 square miles has been laid 
down in a valley that lays 80 feet deep, has 
been slowly eroded by a comparatively small 
stream. As the first gravel was being 
laid down, the culture of man was repre- 
sented by rudely chipped stones — eoliths. 
As things are today, man's culture is repre- 
sented by the wireless messages and aero- 
planes which cross the Weald and the great 
steamers passing down the channel and rural 
homes and country houses which everywhere 
meet the eye." * * * 

"In the gravel also occurred certain flints 
which were regarded by Mr. Grist as sim- 
ilar to the eoliths (rudely chipped stones) 
of the Kentish plateau. Mr. Clement Reid 
inspected the trench — the only one of the 
kind known — and found it did not represent 
any cleft or fault produced by natural agen- 
cies. No stream could have produced such 
a trench; there is no stream now on the 
plateau. Mr. Fisher could only account for 

37 



money or MEN? 



it on the supposition that it was dug by the 
hands of man and was designed like similar 
trenches at that day as an elephant trap. If 
Mr. Fisher's instance is right and no other 
satisfactory explanation has been offered, we 
have the startling revelation that in the Plio- 
cene period (500,000 years ago) mankind 
had already reached an advanced stage in 
his evolution." * * * 

" Having thus settled so far as the evi- 
dence will permit, the approximate position 
of the Piltdown man in the scale of time — 
and beyond question he represents the earli- 
est specimen of true humanity yet discov- 
ered^ — we now proceed to see what sort of a 
being he was. The truth is that we have to 
discover his characters from the fragments 
of the skull, no other part was found." * * * 

"The writer is a student of the human 
body and is therefore not in a position to 
offer any conclusive evidence which will help 
to settle whether the Piltdown man was 
Pleistocene (400,000 years ago) or Pliocene 
(500,000 years ago) . Yet there is one point 
which must weigh with those who seek to 
place this newly discovered human form in 
its proper place in the scale of time. The 
lower jaw, especially in the region of the 

38 



money or MEN? 



chin, is marked by certain characters which 
separate it sharply from the corresponding 
part of all human mandibles, and link it 
closely with the jaw of apes. (The mandible 
is the principle bone of the lower jaw.) 
Even in the Heidelberg mandible which be- 
longs to the early Pleistocene age, the 
human features have already begun to ap- 
pear. In the Piltdown mandible, the con- 
formation is that of the ape ; a Simian stage 
is still preserved. The Heidelberg man- 
dible shows th^t the human contour of the 
chin had already appeared at the begin- 
ning of the Pleistocene period, but a 
change of this kind has not become mani- 
fest in the Piltdown mandible. This feature 
suggests that the Piltdown man represents, 
as the animal remains accompanying sug- 
gest, the Pliocene form. I am of the opinion 
that future discoveries will prove that the re- 
mains found at Piltdown represent the first 
trace yet found of a Pliocene form of man." 

The reader may feel that I have spent 
enough time in regard to the Piltdown skull 
and the antiquity of men. Yet Dr. Keith 
wrote a whole book, and this is but one of 
many similar books of many different auth- 
ors who have confined their attention to the 

39 



money or MEN? 



antiquity of man. This one book deals very 
largely with this one skull known as the 
Piltdown skull. I have quoted from Dr. 
Keith's book at length because I want to im- 
press upon the reader that, according to all 
leading scientists, man has been in the course 
of evolution or development, for untold 
thousands of years, longer than we really 
can intelligently comprehend. We have 
been building from generation to generation 
until finally we have reached the present 
stage of civilization. 

Our knowledge of man in the ancient 
period mentioned above is necessarily very 
limited. But the suggestion about the trench 
where they found the Piltdown skull being 
an elephant trap, gives us something of an 
idea as to the intelligence of man at that 
period. From that period of a half million 
years ago down to the historical period 
about 5,000 or 6,000 years ago, we find the 
remains of many races of human beings. 
These races came from the southeast, out of 
Asia, into Europe, each of them existed there 
for twenty or thirty thousand years and dis- 
appeared; and an entirely new race of men 
came in and took their place. These prim- 
itive people have left behind them their flint 

40 



money or MEN? 



instruments for work and war. We find 
carvings on bone and drawings made by the 
ancient cave dwellers. We find the bones of 
these ancient races at various depths in the 
ground 40, 60, 80 or 100 feet or more below 
the present-day surface. While the history 
of these people is found only in a few scat- 
tered remnants, yet we can credit the truth 
of the story which they have left behind them 
as well as we can believe the history of mod- 
ern peoples. 

In the fertile Mesopotamian Valley, in 
India, along the banks of the wonderful Nile 
in Egypt, historical man had his beginning. 
Previous to that time men had been grad- 
ually forming themselves into small hered- 
itary groups or tribes. From fashioning 
rude implements of stone, they progressed 
and became workers in metals. From 
crude language they came to writing books 
on skins of animals and clay tablets, some 
of their libraries existing to the present day. 
In those early days of the historical period, 
we find the beginnings of astronomy and 
mathematics, of medicine and philosophy, 
agriculture, and all the forerunners of the 
industries and knowledge which we possess 
today. In some ways the ancient historical 

41 



money or MEN? 



people did things that we have not equalled 
at the present time. 

It would be interesting to trace down 
through the progressive steps and stages, 
the evolution of the modern ocean-going, 
gigantic steamboat with all its luxurious ap- 
pointments from the first means used by pre- 
historic man to journey over the water. We 
imagine that the first boat was nothing but 
a log which primitive man used to cross the 
stream or lake with greater ease and safety. 
Some ingenious savage built the first dug- 
out, partly burning it and partly hacking it 
out with a crude stone chisel or axe. It gave 
him a boat in which he could not only navi- 
gate with greater safety, but it gave him an 
increased carrying capacity for what few 
things he might possess. 

The next stage in development of naviga- 
tion was probably the canoe similar to the 
birch-bark canoe of our North American 
Indians. Then came the first rudely con- 
structed scow propelled by paddles or poles ; 
afterwards came what is now our modern 
row boat Not satisfied with the size of the 
primitive boat, man built larger and larger 
boats, used his fellow men in slavery as mo- 
tive power, evolved the idea of making use 

42 



money or MEN? 



of the wind and hoisted the sail. 

It is only yesterday, as we scan the long 
life of the human race, that we applied 
steam power to our boats. Yet power-pro- 
pelled boats seem common-place enough 
today. The passing railroad train attracts 
but little attention. Street-cars and auto- 
mobiles are a part of our everyday life. The 
telephone, the telegraph, "wireless," attract 
our attention less than does the rising sun. 

We look with pride upon the wonderful 
engineering work in modern building con- 
struction; and we are inclined to credit our- 
selves for all that surrounds us today. Yet 
as a matter of fact, that which man has 
today, is not due to man alone in this age 
nor to him even in small part. It is the 
cumulative effect of untold millions and mil- 
lions of men — men who have taken the same 
journey we are taking from the cradle to the 
grave and who have passed on to us the re- 
sults of their work, their worry, and their 
efforts. It has been a weary journey that 
the human race has taken from the days 
when the man who was the owner of the Pilt- 
down skull wandered through the primitive 
wilderness of what is now a cultivated com- 
munity in England. 

43 



money or MEN? 



I can only hint at man historically in the 
limited space in a book of this kind. I have 
simply tried to show MAN is much older 
and much more important than money, that 
money was originally the servant of man in- 
stead of man being the servant of money. 

It would be a pleasure to the writer to 
continue this chapter indefinitely but other 
and more important phases of our subject 
demand attention. 



"Education is the only interest worthy the 
deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful 
man!' — Wendell Phillips. 

44 



Chapter V 
Man's Opportunity 

"There is an hour in each man's life appointed 
"To make his happiness, if then he seize it." 

— Beaumont and Fletcher. 

OUR forefathers wrote in large letters 
"all men are created free and equal." 
Some of those same forefathers were 
owners of slaves. In a sense, in those days 
slaves were not regarded as men. But these 
facts make us hesitate over the statement 
that "all men are created free and equal." 

"We certainly do believe that all men 
should be born to the fullest possible free- 
dom and equality, but that they are, is far 
from the facts in the case. Each man is a 
product of heredity and environment. That 
is, every man or every woman inherits from 
near and far ancestors certain qualities of 
mind and body, certain tendencies, certain 
mental and physical traits. Even among 
children of the same parents, we do not get 
the same mental and physical endowments. 
Far from it. Each one of us is a combina- 
tion of traits handed down to us from our 
parents, our grandparents, or our great 

45 



money or MEN? 



grandparents* Two brothers may be entire- 
ly opposite physically and mentally. Living 
conditions play a tremendously important 
part in man's opportunity; not only his own 
living conditions but those of his near an- 
cestors. The wrong moral or physical living 
conditions of grandparents is liable to have 
a very marked effect upon the grandchil- 
dren. 

Looking at living conditions first from the 
racial viewpoint, we recognize at once that 
they have shaped and molded the various 
races living upon this earth. The character- 
istics, the ability of each race is formed and 
influenced by the climate, the soil, the land 
in which they live. Races in the hot tropical 
climates do not progress in the art or sci- 
ences, or in mechanical or industrial skill. 
Life is too easy. 

The races in the cold arctic climates do 
not progress. Securing a bare existence is 
so tremendously difficult that there is no op- 
portunity, no surplus of physical or mental 
strength for developing beyond the condi- 
tion of simply existing. Life here is too 
hard. 

The peoples of the temperate zone have 
been the ones that have advanced civiliza- 

46 



money or MEN? 



tion. Not because they had greater national 
ability but because living conditions were 
favorable. This climate is neither too severe 
nor too mild. And its constant changes are 
stimulating. In the temperate climate man 
has made his greatest advances in liter- 
ature, art, science and industry. 

The favorable climate and the fertility of 
the soil has made possible accumulation of 
wealth. Man by his labor has been able not 
only to sustain life but to create a surplus. 
This surplus has raised the standard of liv- 
ing, made us more comfortable and happier. 
We are a fortunate and favored people be- 
cause we live in a temperate climate. The 
printing press would never have been invent- 
ed in a country like the Congo district of 
Africa. There the heat is so terrific that 
man has very little ambition beyond eating 
and sleeping. Neither could we imagine 
building and operating a railroad in the 
arctic regions. The long winter nights and 
the short summer days make existence almost 
unendurable for any species of living ani- 
mals outside of polar bears. 

We are then the products of our ances- 
tors, living conditions or environment, 
climate, etc. These vary so widely that 

47 



money or MEN? 



all men are not created free and equal. But 
even in our favored climate we find men are 
not created equal. One man is born to pov- 
erty, another to wealth. Those of us who 
are born to the great middle class, the ma- 
jority, have in many ways more of an oppor- 
tunity for progress than either of the other 
classes. 

Work, struggle is good for all of us. It is 
only through such work that we develop. A 
man can no more develop his character with- 
out struggle, which is exercise, than can the 
muscles of the body be developed without 
exercise, which as a matter of fact is strug- 
gle for the muscles. But, a man may over- 
exercise, over-train or strain his muscles. 
Many a man who is born to poverty, finds 
himself handicapped at the beginning and 
in an almost hopeless struggle to overcome 
obstacles, which are insurmountable to him. 
On the other hand, those born to wealth are 
born to a life of ease. Not being willing to 
work, to submit to honest toil, they fail in 
their development as men and become a 
menace to society. 

Both those who are born to great riches 
and those who are born in extreme poverty, 
are a danger to the welfare of the human 

48 



money or MEN? 



race. Both classes should be eliminated from 
among civilized mankind. This elimination 
can be brought about by righting the social 
order so that there shall be no poverty, no 
great wealth. So that everyone shall have 
abundance of that which is good and neces- 
sary for their development as men, in its 
broadest and truest serfse. 

What should be every man's opportunity? 
We should accord to every man and every 
woman the opportunity for seeking happi- 
ness wherever they will and however they 
will; providing always that they are not in- 
ter f erring with the rights of others. Every 
person that is born into this world should 
have an opportunity first, for education, and 
second, for earning a comfortable living. 
Each man's work should be so ordered as to 
give them time for leisure to develop the 
physical, mental, moral, and spiritual gifts 
with which they have been endowed. 

A competitive society, which is necessary 
if money is to be first, is what we now have. 
If man is the first consideration and we wish 
to give to every man an opportunity equal 
to every other man, we must create a state 
of society where competition is eliminated 
and co-operation rules universally. 

49 



money or MEN? 



Just a word from a little book entitled 
"The Destiny of Man/' by John Fiske, a 
book worth every man's reading, because it 
is so broad and basic in its survey of man's 
opportunities and possibilities. 

"We have made more progress in intelli- 
gence than in kindness. For thousands of 
generations and until very recent times one 
of the chief occupations of men has been to 
plunder, bruise and kill one another. The 
selfish and ugly passions which are primor- 
dial — which have the incalculable strength of 
inheritance from the time when animal con- 
sciousness began — have had but little oppor- 
tunity to grow weak from disuse. The ten- 
der and unselfish feelings which are a later 
product of evolution, have too seldom been 
allowed to grow strong from exercise. And 
the whims and prejudices of primeval mili- 
tant barbarism are slow in dying out from 
the most of peaceful, industrial civilization. 
The coarser forms of cruelty are disappear- 
ing and the butchery of men has greatly 
diminished. 

"But most people apply to industrial 
pursuits, a notion of antagonism derived 
from ages of warfare, and seek in all 
manner of ways to cheat or over-reach one 

50 



money or MEN? 



another. As in more barbarous times, the 
hero was he who had slain his tens of thou- 
sands, so now the man who has made wealth 
by over-reaching his neighbors is not un- 
commonly spoken of in terms which we imply 
approval. Though gentlemen, moreover, no 
longer slay one another^ with knives and 
clubs, they still inflict wounds with cruel 
words and sneers. Though the free-thinker 
is no longer chained to a stake and burned, 
people still tell lies about him and do their 
best to starve him by hurting his reputation. 
The virtues of forebearance and self-control 
are still in a very rudimentary state and of 
mutual helpfulness there is far too little 
among men." 



"Education is the only interest worthy the 
deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful 
man." — Wendell Phillips. 

51 



Chapter VI 
What Is Real Wealth? 

"Ill bears the land, to hastening ills a prey, 

Where wealth accumulates, and men decay." 

Goldsmith. 

WHAT of wealth? Real wealth. Of 
what does it consist? If you will go 
to the dictionary you will find that 
the first meaning of wealth is welfare, pros- 
perity, good. But we note that this use of 
the word is now obsolete. It is no longer 
used in that meaning, but it closely describes 
what real, true wealth should be. The word 
"wealth" now means large possessions, a 
great amount of money, or an abundance of 
those things which we desire for our comfort, 
for our convenience. 

That story which was familiar to us in our 
boyhood days, which is read by every boy or 
should be, the book " Swiss Family Robin- 
son" serves as an apt illustration of our 
subject. The Swiss Family Robinson, con- 
sisting of father, mother and four sons, are 
wrecked on an uninhabited island in the 
south seas. Through this experience they 
came to realize the value of real wealth and 

52 



money or MEN? 



the worthlessness of mere money. They had 
no use whatever for a medium of exchange. 
Gold pieces lost their artificial value on this 
island and that which ministered to their 
welfare, came to be to them real wealth. 

They were in need of food and shelter. 
They could not buy shelter/ with money be- 
cause there was no one from whom to buy. 
They could not purchase food with gold 
pieces because there was no one to sell them 
anything. This shows us in a rather start- 
ling way the fact that money, after all, is but 
a medium of exchange. It has no intrinsic 
value. It is only necessary to human welfare 
in a complex and intricate order of society ; 
where every man is dependent on the work 
of others. Money is extremely convenient 
in our present social order but its value is 
only in that which it represents. 

Real wealth, that is welfare, for the Swiss 
Family Robinson, was found in those things 
that helped them to make for themselves a 
shelter ; that aided them in securing food and 
clothing. We have here a story then of men 
without money, yet having real wealth. In 
this story of the Swiss Family Robinson, we 
find them first with a temporary shelter then 
with a permanent abode. At first their food 

53 



money or MEN? 



supply is very uncertain. Later, due to the 
real wealth which they took from the ship's 
hold in the shape of farm implements, they 
created further real wealth — a supply of 
food or provisions above their immediate 
wants. 

The first hard years they wrested from 
nature only that which satisfied their purely 
physical wants and needs — food and shelter. 
Later there came a time when their hours of 
work could be shortened. Opportunity was 
then given them for reading and studying, 
for relaxation and pleasure. They began to 
accumulate real wealth — not money. 

But we are not the Swiss Family Robin- 
son and we are not living on an uninhabited 
island. We are living in a complex and in- 
tricate state of society. No longer does a 
man count his wealth in the few acres that 
he tills, or the house and buildings which he 
has erected. Our modern industrial wealth 
is quite different from anything which has 
preceded us in the history of man. 

The true wealth of a nation consists not in 
its amount of wealth measured in money. 
Rather the nation's wealth is determined by 
whether wealth and money are distributed so 
as to create real wealth or welfare for the 
men composing the nation. 

54 



money or MEN? 



In a primitive farming community the 
labor of each man on the farm brought back 
to him all that was necessary for his welfare. 

While nature did not always smile upon 
him and some crops were failures, yet in the 
main his toil came back to him in food, cloth- 
ing and shelter each year./ And there was 
a gradual accumulation for the years that 
were to come. In such a community there 
was real wealth because there was welfare. 

While agriculture had and now has its 
problems, far more perplexing problems 
are those of the worker in our modern indus- 
trial life. Is he getting as a reward of his 
labor real wealth in the shape of welfare? 
Does he get beside food, shelter and clothing, 
a surplus for the years to come when it will 
be more difficult for him to turn his work 
into wages? 

In the simple farming communities no 
man was rich and none need feel the pinch 
of poverty. Wealth was fairly well dis- 
tributed. The welfare of the community at 
large constituted its strength. If our mod- 
ern industrial life is not distributing wealth 
fairly, which is always the product of labor, 
whether of brain or brawn, then we have a 
condition where wealth comes to mean 

55 



money or MEN? 



money or capital. But we have not true 
wealth in the sense of human welfare. 

Rome at one time ruled the world. Rome 
had money, wealth, power unlimited. In the 
golden, palmy days of Rome there were 
riches such as had never been known in the 
history of the world before. But what of 
Rome's true wealth? What of the welfare 
of the nation? Rome built her wonderful 
highways, Rome sent her soldiery into all 
parts of the known world. Rome built her 
beautiful temples, wonderful gardens, de- 
veloped her art, her literature, her law, her 
commerce. Rome came to have her multi- 
millionaires. But Rome had her poverty, 
too, and her slaves. And it was only a few 
centuries and Rome was gone. Rome had 
wealth, but not welfare. 

This great country of ours has its high- 
ways, and they are now steel highways. We 
sent a wonderful army across the seas. We 
have developed the fine arts, laws, literature, 
science, learning. We have developed our 
commerce, our great industrial plants which 
supply the world. We have our multi-mil- 
lionaires. But we have our poverty and who 
shall say that we do not have our slavery? 
For the permanency of any nation we must 

56 



money or MEN? 



have real wealth — welfare for the individual. 
To promote this condition we must have 
wealth and money paid to men only for 
actual work of brain and body. 

Dr. Holland in that most interesting book, 
"Sevenoaks," tells of the building of a home 
and has one of the characters in the book 
say: "To build a human home, where 
woman lives and little children open their 
eyes upon life, and grow up and marry and 
die — a home full of love and toil, of pleasure 
and hope and hospitality, is to do the finest 
thing that a man can do." 

Here then is a word picture of real wealth, 
of that which makes life worth while. But 
we must not forget that real wealth is made 
possible to more men only when money is 
made to serve men. 



''Education is the only interest worthy the 
deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful 
man' 3 — Wendell Phillips. 

57 



Chapter VII 

Natural Resources and Public Utilities 

"For as labor cannot produce without the use 
of land, the denial of the equal right to the use 
of land is necessarily the denial of the right of 
labor to its own produce." — Henry George. 

IT SEEMS almost useless to attempt to 
take up this great subject in a single 
chapter. It is impossible to more than 
briefly touch upon some phases of this much 
mooted question. 

There are many arguments advanced to 
show that land itself should not belong to 
individual men. These arguments have some 
foundation. But how much stronger are the 
arguments that the mineral wealth under- 
neath the land should not belong to indi- 
vidual men! For we build up the value of 
land by farming it properly. But when we 
take out minerals we tear down the value of 
the land. 

The first forms of rude society protected 
man in the ownership of property. It was 
necessary to do this in order to stabilize so- 
ciety — to protect the man in the labor he 
expended upon his particular piece of prop- 

58 



money or MEN? 



erty. Without some assurance that he would 
be allowed to reap the reward of his industry 
from year to year, there would have been no 
incentive for him to work the ground, and 
agriculture in its modern sense would never 
have been developed. Man in his land laws 
considered only the surface^ soil, which would 
bear the fruits and grain through cultiva- 
tion. By protecting man in his property 
rights, he was given that which was due him 
as the results of his labor. 

No one a century ago could foretell that 
our government, in granting land in Penn- 
sylvania was giving the owner untold wealth 
in the crude oil which lay deep down under 
the surface. Oil had not been discovered at 
that period. When it finally was discovered, 
it was luck that the man who happened to 
own the farm in a particular locality came 
suddenly into an unthought-of fortune 
through the bursting oil. 

The value of soil at the surface of the 
earth may be increased at the same time it 
is producing that which is needful to society 
as well as the individual, but its wealth can- 
not be obtained without giving an equivalent 
in the form of work or labor. 

We all know the history of the oil fields 



money or MEN? 



of Pennsylvania. We are all well acquainted 
with the fact that enormous fortunes were 
made for some few individuals without any 
toil. This was simply due to owning part of 
a natural resource. It surely is not right 
either to ourselves, or our children and chil- 
dren's children which are to follow us, to 
allow the natural resources of the earth to 
be used for the benefit of a few individuals ; 
who through chance are able to gain posses- 
sion of them. 

Practically all farm land is capable of cul- 
tivation. At any time and at all times, the 
owner of it may grow enough to maintain 
life for himself or his family. But natural 
resources like oil, or coal, or minerals are 
not found under every farm. Our inland 
lakes and rivers are common property for 
fishing, protected by law in recent years, so 
that the fish may breed and multiply, and 
continue to be common property. Yet our 
fish and game laws are not actually neces- 
sary in order that society may have sufficient 
food. They are enacted rather that our citi- 
zens may not eventually be deprived of the 
pleasure and sport of fishing and hunting. 

If we are furnishing protection of this kind 
in order that we may add to the pleasure of 
individuals, how much more necessary it is 

60 



money or MEN? 



to protect our mineral resources. They do 
not breed and multiply but are reduced in 
quantity each year with no possible way of 
replacement. Certainly for the welfare of 
society at large, our natural resources in the 
shape of minerals and oil and coal must be 
conserved — not for the exploitation of the 
few but for the benefit of the many. 

The English scientist, Alfred Russell 
Wallace, refers to this question in an inter- 
esting way. The following quotation is 
taken from his book, "Social Environment 
and Moral Progress." 

"I will here add one other argument which 
goes to the root of the matter by^ showing 
that the alleged owners of minerals have not 
even a legal title to them. It is, I believe, a 
maxim of law that public rights cannot be 
lost by disuse. Landed estates were in 
our country, created by the Norman Con- 
queror to be held subject to the performance 
of feudal duties. Deep seated minerals were 
then not known to exist and were not (I be- 
lieve) specifically included in the original 
grants. Except, therefore, where they have 
since been made private property by act of 
Parliament, they still remain public prop- 
erty. I submit, therefore, that they may be 

61 



money or MEN? 



both legally and equitably resumed by the 
government as public property and worked 
for the good of the public and of posterity. 
Compensation to the supposed present own- 
ers would be a matter of favor, not of right/ 9 

While I have argued the question of nat- 
ural resources partly from the legal aspect 
of ownership, I think that in matters of this 
kind, we can arrive at a correct solution if 
decided upon the broader basis of that which 
is right. We must agree that the greatest 
good for the greatest number is right. If we 
say the greatest good for all, we are cer- 
tainly correct. 

It may be government ownership. It may 
be government control. But some method 
should be adopted which will make it impos- 
sible for a few men to exploit and waste nat- 
ural resources, for the purpose of accumu- 
lating money for themselves. That this has 
been and is being allowed is but an added 
argument proving that money is considered 
first and men second. 

When we come to the question of public 
utilities, such as the railroads, the telephone, 
the telegraph, our supply of gas, electricity, 
water, we find that we are dealing with ne- 
cessities of life. These are things which are 

62 



money or MEN? 



necessary for all the people. These are very 
similar to natural resources. The continued 
use of our public utilities for posterity, will 
naturally be limited by our supply of coal 
and minerals unless at some future time, 
some other form of securing power or heat 
is discovered. The necessity for the proper 
control of public utilities, is just as urgent as 
the necessity for control of natural meas- 
ures, so necessary to human welfare. That 
which is so necessary and so vital to human 
welfare as the transportation systems of this 
country, should certainly be under the con- 
trol and supervision of the people of the 
country. 

We cannot even suggest, in this chapter, 
a discussion of the question of what is to be 
done toward solution of the railroad problem. 
It is too big. However, I would simply 
throw out the suggestion that the railroad 
problem is a problem of money or men. If 
the railroad problem is solved correctly, it 
will be solved in the interests of men. 

If the railroads are to be run simply for 
the purpose of making money for the indi- 
viduals that own them, they should be left 
to the individuals. If money and men are 
both to be given consideration, then men, 

63 



money or MEN? 



through their legal representatives, should 
have a voice in the control of the railroads. 

If men are to be considered first, then we 
are facing an entirely different problem. In 
fact, we are facing a problem which is quite 
new to society. 

We have built our modern industrial 
fabric very fast. That we have built so fast 
has been very largely due to our wonderful 
transportation systems. That gross misman- 
agement has grown up in connection with 
railroads, ad with other industries, no one 
questions. That we can at one stroke of the 
pen wipe out all these abuses by any plan, 
elaborate or simple, no one believes. It is 
like so many of our other problems, we must 
take time. 

Shall we solve it primarily for men or pri- 
marily for money? 



"Education is the only interest worthy the 
deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful 
man/' — Wendell Phillips. 

64 



Chapter VIII 
Moral Progress 

"Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither 
man nor the proudest of his works, which buries 
empires and cities in a common grave. — Gibbon, 

IT IS extremely difficult to discuss moral 
progress understandingly within the lim- 
ited space of a single chapter. It is only 
possible to touch a few points here and there 
and not go into it deeply. Some refer- 
ence to it, however, in a discussion of money 
or men is absolutely necessary. If we 
have made moral progress, we must take at 
least a fleeting glance backward in order to 
make some comparisons. We cannot judge 
of progress from simply referring to pres- 
ent-day conditions. Progress denotes time 
or distance; and we must go back as far as 
possible in our knowledge of the morals of 
the human race, to see what were its begin- 
nings and how far we have progressed since 
that time. 

Many thousands of years before the his- 
torical period, we find that man made a prac- 
tice of burying his dead. A respect for the 
dead is only second to a proper regard for 

65 



money or MEN? 



the rights of the living. And the rights of 
the living show the morals of people at any 
given period. 

Dr. Osborne in his book, "Men of the Old 
Stone Age," states that "we must infer that 
the conception of survival after death was 
among the primitive beliefs attested by the 
placing with the dead, of ornaments and of 
weapons, and in many instances of objects 
of food. It is interesting to note that the 
grottos and shelters were so frequently 
sought as places of burial; also that the 
flexed limbs or extended position of the body 
prevailed throughout the west of Europe in 
the Neolithic time as well as the use of color 
through the Solutrean period into Magda- 
lenian times. It is probable from their love 
of color in Parietal decorations, and from 
the appearance of coloring matter in so 
many of the burials, that decoration of the 
living body with color was widely practiced 
and that color was freshly applied, either 
as a pigment or in the form of powder to 
the bodies of the dead in order to prepare 
them for a renewal of life." 

Our information in regard to the moral 
condition of pre-historic men is very lim- 
ited. We cannot believe primitive man had 

66 



money or MEN? 



a moral code the same as we today. Yet 
his regard for the dead and belief in a future 
existence as shown in his burial custom, 
shows a moral condition somewhat similar to 
ours. If we think those far off ancestors 
believed in the immortality of the soul, we 
must also conclude that there was worship 
of a supreme being. That worship must 
have taken outword form, in that way being 
like our present religions. However, we feel 
that ancient man's moral code must have 
been most crude. We feel that he could not 
have had the same sympathetic regard for 
the living as we have, which is shown in our 
charitable organizations, homes for the aged, 
and hospitals. 

We are apt to mention the hospital, the 
care of the sick through modern medicine 
and surgery, as showing our wonderful 
moral progress. Are we so far ahead of 
ancient man in this regard? I think the evi- 
dence that "trepanning" was practiced by 
ancient man shows we have not progressed 
so far after all. Dr. Keith in his book, "The 
Antiquity of Man," gives the following evi- 
dence : 

"One other point may serve to show that 
the status of the Neolithic man was higher 

67 



money or MEN? 



than is usually supposed. The people of 
France of that period prepared their dead in 
caves or large artificially prepared subter- 
ranean chambers. None of these Neolithic 
subterranean chambers have been more sys- 
tematically and scientifically investigated 
than the one accidently discovered in 1908 
on the side of a hill some sixty miles to the 
east of Paris. Remains of over 120 indi- 
viduals representing both sexes and all ages 
were found within this ancient tomb. The 
fall of earth and rock had buried the door- 
way of the sepulcher about the close of the 
Neolithic period. All the work flints and 
ornaments found within the sepulcher vrete 
of that agd of culture. No traces of the 
bronze or iron periods were found. No less 
than eight of the skulls had been opened 
during the life by the operation known as 
trepanning or trephining. It is clear, too, 
that in the majority of cases, those Neolithic 
men undertook and successfully carried out 
operations which even modern surgeons 
hesitate to perform." 

To think of ancient man removing a por- 
tion of the skull of another man with only a 
stone chisel and thus performing the opera- 
tion Known as "trepanning" fills us with 

68 



money or MEN? 



wonder and admiration. But that he did it 
is proven by the evidence left behind by men 
of thousands of years ago. 

What led these men of so long agoi to 
practice so daring a surgical operation, 
using simply stone instruments? We must, 
as Dr. Keith expresses it, believe that "a 
people who practice the operation of trepan- 
ning must entertain certain beliefs concern- 
ing the constitution of the human body — 
beliefs which provide them with principles on 
which their actions are based." 

The motive which caused Neolithic man 
to perform this operation was the same mo- 
tive which has brought our modern hospitals 
into existence. Modern surgery, modern 
care of the sick and the afflicted does not 
necessarily prove moral progress on our 
part. It may simply prove a higher degree 
of mechanical skill in surgery, or a wider 
knowledge in the use of medicine. Science, 
wealth, learning, knowledge, industrial 
achievement is not a measure of the progress 
of morality. 

The history of the moral progress of the 
race is the real history of the race itself. 
What were the moral standards of ancient 
people? Alfred Russell Wallace has writ- 

69 



money or MEN? 



ten a book on this subject called "Social 
Environment and Moral Progress." For 
anything like a complete study, the reader 
is referred to this book. I can only touch 
upon it in this book money or Men. 

Dr. Wallace states that in "the earliest rec- 
ords which have come down to us from the 
past, we find ample indications that * * * 
the accepted standard of morality, and the 
conduct resulting from these, were in no de- 
gree inferior to those which prevail today, 
although in some respects they differed from 
ours." 

We forget sometimes in this christian era, 
that other great religious teachers lived and 
taught in the long years before Christ. The 
noted Indian story, the Maha-Bharata of 
about 1500 B. C, the poems of Homer, the 
teachings of Buddha and Confucius, and of 
Socrates and Plato, all before the Christian 
era afford, as stated by Dr. Wallace, "indi- 
cations of intellectual and moral character 
quite equal to our own; while their lower 
manifestations as shown by their war and 
love of gambling were no worse than corre- 
sponding immoralities today." 

The great Indian story referred to tells of 
the love of man for man; of a belief in the 

70 



money or MEN? 



immortality of the soul; and of the future 
life. Dr. Wallace in quoting a passage from 
this "Hymn of Death" comments on it as 
showing "a perfect confidence in that per- 
sistence of the human personality after 
death which is still a matter of doubt and 
discussion today." 

We can hardly say in the present day that 
we are less cruel in war than ancient men. 
The memory of the tremendous struggle, 
the greatest in the world's history, upon the 
battle fields of Europe is all too close to us. 
So close, that we recognize the thinness of 
the veneer of civilization of the twentieth 
century. 

Dr. Wallace in his book refers to our pres- 
ent living conditions of "insanitary dwellings 
and life-destroying trades, adulteration and 
gambling, our administration of ' justice' 
as immoral." And in his final chapter of the 
treatment of the subject historically he gives 
"indications of increasing moral degrada- 
tion." 

Written just before the great war this 
following paragraph is more than interest- 
ing. "Of war too I need say nothing. It 
has always been more or less chronic since 
the rise of the Roman Empire but there is 

71 



money or MEN? 



now undoubtedly a disinclination for war 
among all civilized people. Yet the vast 
burden of armaments, taken together with 
the most pious declarations in favor of peace 
must be held to show an almost total absence 
of morality as a guiding principle among 
the governing classes. In this respect, the 
increasing power of labor parties all over 
the world seems to afford the only hope of a 
real moral advance" 

Ancient men, however, had slaves. Pris- 
oners taken in war were made slaves and the 
powerful oppressed the weak. Might ruled 
against right. It is possible in our great 
modern industrial era to have a form of 
slavery that comes not from captured pris- 
oners of war. The great sociologist, 
Schaeffle, who was by no means a radical, 
said, "There is nothing more brutal than a 
moneyed aristocracy, in persecuting those 
who dispute its dominion." 

So much has been written in regard to our 
moral progress, our social status and living 
conditions, so large and ever increasing are 
the statistics that we are forced to stop short 
of our mark. 

In ending the chapter we will again quote 
from Dr. Wallace's book : ''Taking account 

72 



money or MEN? 



of these various groups of undoubted facts, 
many of which are so gross, so terrible that 
they cannot be overstated, it is not too much 
to say that our whole system of society is 
rotten from top to bottom, and the Social 
Environment as a whole in relation to our 
possibilities and our claims is the worst that 
the world has ever seen" 



"Education is the only interest worthy the 
deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful 
man" — Wendell Phillips. 

73 



Chapter IX 

Material or Industrial Progress 

"When a man dies they who survive him ask 
what property he has left behind. The angel who 
bends over the dying man asks what good deeds 
he has sent before him." — The Koran. 

PERHAPS every generation has felt 
they have made progress, far beyond 
any previous generation. Certain it is 
that our own generation has a very positive 
feeling that they are far more accomplished 
than any preceding generation. "This won- 
derful twentieth century of ours" is a phrase 
most familiar. What has been our actual 
progress during the historical period — in 
science, industry, engineering, and in all 
that which might be termed material or in- 
dustrial progress? 

Centuries ago the Arabian story teller 
pictured to the listeners the magic tapestry 
on which one could sit and be transported 
swiftly through the air. He described the 
wonderful apple that brought healing to the 
sick. He told of the charmed mirror that 
reflected what was happening at a distance 
in its surface. 

74 



money or MEN? 



The present day bids fair to see these 
things the ancient Arabian story teller imag- 
ined, become facts. The magic tapestry be- 
comes a reality in the aeroplane. The won- 
derful healing of the apple is illustrated by 
modern medicine and surgery. And the 
wireless tells of happenings upon the other 
side of the globe, before they have fairly 
reached their conclusion. 

Because we have made material or indus- 
trial progress, we have made many wonder- 
ful discoveries and inventions in science and 
industry. But these things do not prove 
that men of today are more intellectual and 
wiser than men of past years. 

Although we have progressed materially, 
although the wealth of the world is greater 
than ever before, I question whether man 
has greater intellectual power. The accu- 
mulated knowledge of all the past centuries 
is ours. To wrest scientific knowledge from 
nature 5,000 years ago, may have required 
men of greater intellect than those of the 
present time. Back 5,000 years ago there 
was no printing press, no writing. Imagine 
the intellectual power necessary in those 
times for material progress. The accumula- 
tion of knowledge by those who have pre- 

75 



money or MEN? 



ceded us naturally has made our rate of 
material progress more rapid. And the rate 
of progress will increase even more rapidly 
in the years to come. 

The material or industrial progress made 
by ancient peoples is not to be despised. The 
civilization of ancient Egypt was wonderful 
in many ways. The Hindus built beautiful 
palaces and erected great temples. They 
built forts and weapons of warfare and im- 
plements of peace. They made jewelry and 
wonderfully fine fabrics. While not all of 
their buildings have survived the attacks of 
India's tropical climate, we know enough of 
their material progress of a few thousand 
years ago to credit them with a civilization 
which showed a wonderful material progress 
and achievement. 

The records of the ancient Chaldeans and 
Babylonians iri the valley of the Mesopo- 
tamia, of which we have authentic records 
dating back of those of India and Greece, 
show some wonders which we cannot now 
duplicate. The wonderful hangings of an- 
cient Babylonia are today recognized as hav- 
ing been one of the wonders of the world. 
Our material or industrial progress of today, 
is more in the speed of our achievements 

76 



money or MEN? 



than in its character and permanency. 

Even the things done by the mound build- 
ers of our own country may outlast our 
twentieth century achievements. 

Some of the pyramids of Egypt have 
withstood the ravages of time for many thou- 
sands of years. The great Egyptian pyra- 
mid of Gizeh is the largest of some seventy 
pyramids scattered through Egypt. The 
date of its building is generally given as 
about 3700 B. C, nearly 2,000 years earlier 
than the civilization of ancient Greece. Her- 
odotus, the Greek historian, is authority for 
the statement that it took 100,000 men 
twenty years to erect this great pyramid. It 
covers 13 acres, is 451 feet high, contains 
2,300,000 stone blocks which have an average 
size of 40 cubic feet, and the estimated 
weight is nearly 7,000,000 tons. It is the 
largest piece of masonry ever built. The 
average weight of the stones is 2*4 tons 
each, but some of them weigh 50 tons each. 
The stone blocks were fitted and squared 
with an accuracy seldom equalled in building 
operations today. 

Burton Holmes, the travel lecturer, refers 
to the pyramids as "eloquent of the wealth 
and power of those (ancient) kings. They 

77 



money or MEN? 



represented the suffering, pain and toil of 
dumb, uncounted multitudes of slaves. They 
are the highest and costliest, crudest tombs 
the world has ever seen." 

Have we progressed so far today that we 
can say the products are produced without 
slave labor? A careful review of the facts 
for the past fifty years would indicate that 
industrial slavery can be almost as bad as 
actual slavery. 

Like the hanging gardens of Babylon, the 
pyramids were numbered among the seven 
wonders of the ancient world, and a modern 
world still marvels at their construction. The 
historian says of them, "these venerable me- 
morials of the early world, although they 
stand so far back in the gray dawn of the 
historic morning, mark not the beginning 
but in some respects the perfection of 
Egyptian art. They speak of long periods of 
human lives, of ages of growth and experi- 
ence lying behind the era they represent." 

The little that we know of ancient Egypt 
shows that the ancient pyramids mark the 
ending of the material progress of that coun- 
try. It took many thousands of years of 
progress to reach the age of the pyramid 
builders. 

78 



money or MEN? 



This great pyramid, the Gizeh, shows 
something of the progress made by the 
ancient Egyptians. It is placed very close 
to the 30th parallel of latitude. Its four sides 
face the north, south, east and west. It is 
a perfectly square structure. And the foun- 
dation is level. According to the English 
scientist, Wallace, "the first thing the build- 
ers had to do was to get a true meridian line 
and they could have done this in two ways. 
By observation of the sun or the pole star, 
the latter being much the more accurate 
though more laborious than costly. * * * 

"In order to observe the direction of this 
star at its lowest point, the builders exca- 
vated in the solid rock a tunnel about 4 feet 
in diameter so as to keep this star visible each 
day at the lowest point of its circuit. This 
tunnel extended 350 feet through the rock 
to a point nearly under the center of the 
pyramid where by a small vertical boring, a 
plumb-line could have been dropped so as to 
obtain the direct line of the meridian on the 
surface, and afterwards on each successive 
step of the pyramid as it was built up." 

Mr. Wallace goes on to show the knowl- 
edge of astronomy and of engineering which 
the ancient Egyptians had. He describes 

79 



money or MEN? 



how some of the grottos and galleries of the 
pyramids are so arranged as to make astro- 
nomical observations possible. All of this 
shows that the ancient Egyptian must have 
been possessed of more knowledge than we 
usually give him credit for. His material 
progress must have advanced to a point 
where the relative value of money and men 
might well have been discussed at that far 
off day. 

I have discussed at some length the mate- 
rial or industrial progress of the civilizations 
of somd of the dead and forgotten races; 
because I feel that we are going to find 
many of the answers of our present day 
problem by so doing. 

The kings, with money and wealth, built 
the material things of their time, using 
slaves to perform the labor. We have today 
our kings of commerce and industry. The 
rate of progress which they are making in 
this "wonderful twentieth century of ours" 
is admittedly far beyond that which has ever 
been made in the past. Industrial slavery 
may be just as real and cruel, compared with 
modern civilization, a^ was the slavery of 
ancient Egypt. 

I have shown that material progress had 
so 



mpney or MEN? 



its beginnings long before historical times. 
Industrial progress develops, unfolds, in- 
creases its rate of progress. It constantly 
changes conditions. It constantly makes 
new problems. As it hastens ever onward 
it accumulates wealth. In its rapid journey 
is it to simply pile up wealth and capital — 
money? Or is it to be harnessed, directed, 
yes driven for the benefit of men? 



"Education is the only interest worthy the 
deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful 
man/' — Wendell Phillips. 

81 



Chapter X 

Every Man Should Earn A Living 

"I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man 
hate, envy no man's happiness; glad of other 
men's good, content with my harm." — Shake- 
speare. 

IN co-operative society, it goes without 
saying that every able-bodied man should 
earn a living. That is, that every man 
should labor and create enough to contrib- 
ute his share to the general welfare of the 
community. He should produce as much as 
he consumes and a little more. In a com- 
petitive society man does not necessarily earn 
a living, he simply gets it. In keeping with 
this line of thought, I want to quote again 
from the book by Mr. Rauschenbusch: — 

"The social nature of man makes him an 
imitative creature. The instinct of imitation 
and emulation may be a powerful lever for 
good if individuals and classes set the ex- 
ample of real culture and refinement of man- 
ners and taste. But the processes of com- 
petitive industry have poured: vast wealth 
into the lap of a limited number, and have 
created an unparalleled lavishness of ex- 

82 



money or MEN? 



penditures which has nothing ennobling 
about it, 

"Those who have to work hard for their 
money will, as a rule, be careful how they 
spend it. Those who get it without effort, 
will spend it without thought. Thus para- 
sitic wealth is sure to create a vicious luxury, 
which then acts as a centre of infection for 
all other classes. Fashions operate down- 
ward. Each class tries to imitate the one 
higher up, and to escape from the imitation 
of those lower down. Thus the ostentation 
of the overfull purses of the predatory rich 
lures all society into the worship of false 
gods. It intensifies "the lust of the eye 
and the pride of life" unnaturally, and to 
that extent expels "the love of the Father," 
which includes the love of all true values. 

"Any one can test the matter in his own 
case by asking himself how much of his 
money, his time, and his worry is consumed 
in merely "keeping up with the procession," 
and is diverted from real culture to mere dis- 
play by the compulsion of social require- 
ments about him. The man who lives only 
on his labor is brought into social competi- 
tion with people who have additional income 
through rents and profits, and must break 

83 



money or MEN? 



his back merely to keep his wife and children 
on a level with others. 

"The very spirit of democracy which has 
wiped out the old class lines in modern life, 
makes the rivalry keener. In Europe a 
peasant girl or a servant formerly was quite 
content with the dress of her class and had 
no ambition to rival the very different dress 
of the gentry. With us the instinct of imi- 
tation works without a barrier from the top 
of the social pyramid to the bottom, and the 
whole process of consumption throughout 
society is feverishly affected by the aggrega- 
tion of unearned money at the top. The em- 
bezzlements of business men, the nervous 
breakdown of women, the ruin of girls, the 
neglect of home and children, are largely 
caused by the? unnatural pace of expendi- 
tures. If the rich had only what they earned, 
and the poor had all that they earned, all 
wheels would revolve more slowly and life 
would be more sane." 

"Industry and commerce are in their na- 
ture productive and therefore good. But in 
our industry a strong element of rapacity 
vitiates the moral qualities of business life. 
A railway president in New York said to me 
— half in joke, of course: "The men who 

84 



money or MEN? 



go down town on the elevated at seven and 
eight o'clock really make things. We who 
go down at nine and ten, only try to take 
things away from one another." Supplying 
goods to the people is, of course, the main 
thing ; but crowding out the other man, who 
also wants to supply them, takes a large part 
of the time and energy of business. 

"Our competitive life has so deeply 
warped our moral judgment that not one 
man in a thousand will realize anything im- 
moral in attracting another man's customers. 
'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's trade' 
is not in our decalogue." 

If we consider money first, the tendency 
will be not to earn a living by doing creative 
work; but rather to give our energy and 
time and thought to taking away money, 
which represents creative labor, from some 
one else who has it. The man who invents a 
useful machine, the man who builds it, the 
man who sells it, and the man who buys it 
and uses it, are all men who earn a living. 
They are adding to the wealth of the com- 
munity and making possible an increase in 
the sum total of human happiness ; provided 
the wealth which they create is rightly and 
fairly distributed. 

85 



money or MEN? 



The man, however, who does not earn a 
living but takes it from someone in this same 
useful machine, does not add to human hap- 
piness or welfare, but lessens it. The man 
who raises a hundred bushels of potatoes 
earns a living, creates wealth. The man 
who buys these same hundred bushels of po- 
tatoes for speculative purposes and sells 
them at a big| advance over the purchase 
price, makes a profit. He may get a living 
but he does not earn one. 

The natural course of evolution has 
brought us to a time when individual man 
exchanges his own labor products for other 
products. Instead of growing his own pota- 
toes, spinning cloth and making his own 
clothes, preparing leather for his own shoes, 
sawing up lumber for his own home — each 
workman specializes in some one thing there- 
by earning his living. Money gives him in 
convenient form, a medium of exchange for 
obtaining the product of others. 

This distribution of work, this specializ- 
ing by the various groups of men, should 
give great advantages. The resultant prod- 
uct should be much better, and obtained at a 
cost of far less labor. For every man to 
mine his own coal, to build his own stove or 

86 



money or MEN? 



furnace, to build his own house, and provide 
all the necessaries for existence without 
counting the luxuries, would mean for both 
the individual and the community at large a 
tremendous economic waste. We are 
specializing in modern times and our de- 
pendence upon the work of others should 
give every man far more at less expense than 
under the old primitive system of "every 
man for himself." 

If the man in the shoe factory receives 
$1.00 for making a pair of shoes, and his 
neighbor who works in a hat factory pays 
$5.00 for the same pair of shoes — it would 
look as if there was a waste somewhere. That 
some one in distributing the shoes is getting 
a living and not earning it. I do not know 
that a pair of shoes retailing at $5.00 costs 
only $1.00 to make. But we all of us know 
that the worker who earns his living and 
creates necessities finds it necessary to pay 
a too largely increased price for the finished 
products of labor. 

If we could imagine a town of just 100 
men with their families we can see this more 
clearly. Let us then suppose that this com- 
munity of 100 men is mining coal, iron and 
other necessary metals. It is taking lum- 

87 



money or MEN? 



ber from the forest, growing food and cre- 
ating all the necessities of modern life 
through labor. 

When we make a pair of shoes in this 
town, the hides of the cattle would be tanned 
and made into leather. Some man in the 
community would turn the leather into shoes. 
The man who bought the shoes would pay 
the farmer for his labor in raising the cattle. 
He would pay the tanner for tanning the 
hide, and he would pay the shoemaker for his 
time in making the shoes. Every man in the 
community of 100 men would thus be earn- 
ing his own living. But supposing some man 
came into the community with sufficient 
money to buy all the shoes that the shoe- 
maker could make. Suppose that the actual 
retail cost of a pair of shoes in this com- 
munity had amounted to $1.00 a pair. The 
man with money could buy all the shoes at 
$1.00 a pair. He could then charge $5.00 a 
pair because he would have all the shoes — a 
monopoly. 

Now if it is impossible for any one living 
in this town to buy shoes outside of the 
town, each one will have to pay $5.00 
for a pair of shoes — for which he used to pay 
only $1.00. The difference of $4.00 goes to 

88 



money or MEN? 



the man with money. He gets a living with- 
out earning it. Some may think he is en- 
titled to this profit because of his shrewd- 
ness, his foresight, his ability as a business 
man. From a business (money) stand- 
point, he is entitled to all the profit he can 
squeeze out. From a moral (man) stand- 
point he is entitled to only fair pay for his 
work. 

The man who enters this small town and 
buys up and secures a monopoly of all the 
shoes, and sells them at a huge profit, is not 
a necessary man in that town. In a large 
town, the man who makes the shoes can't 
distribute them. Some man in a large town 
can earn a living by distributing shoes. But 
he is not entitled to a large profit over what 
his time is worth. 

There is a tremendous value to society in 
having every man earn his own living. 
There is a satisfaction in the doing of cre- 
ative work, a pleasure that cannot be found 
in any other way. The man who is doing 
creative work, who is performing useful 
labor, is benefiting both himself and the 
community in which he lives, as well as so- 
ciety at large. 

The farmer who tills the soil and grows 

89 



money or MEN? 



grain is doing creative work. He is earning 
his living. The railroad that hauls the grain 
grown by the farmer is doing a useful work. 
The railroad employe who aids in this dis- 
tribution of the grain is earning his living. 
But the man who speculates in the grain and 
attempts to monopolize it even in a small 
way, may get a living, but he does not earn 
it. He is not only of no value to the com- 
munity and society at large, he is a posi- 
tive menace to organized society. 

The railroad owner who distributes the 
grain is earning a living if he is managing 
the railroad with economy for the benefit of 
both the producer and the consumer. But 
he does not earn his living, although he may 
get it, when he uses the railroad for manipu- 
lation. Then he devotes his energies to the 
acquiring of wealth which is already created. 

Closely allied with this question of money 
or men, is this same question as to whether 
a man shall earn his living or merely get his 
living. 

When we reduce the number of men who 
are simply getting a living and make them 
earn a living we reduce economic waste* We 
make it possible for the man who earns his 
living to receive a just reward; to get act- 
ually what he has earned. 

90 



money or MEN? 



In our supposed community of 100 men, 
if each man were actually earning his living, 
each man would get the just and proper re- 
turn for his labor. If only 90 of the 100 
men were earning their living, and 10 were 
getting a living through manipulation and 
scheming — then the 90 men would receive 
only 9/lOths of what they earned. Each 
one of them would have to contribute 1/I0th 
to the 10 men in the community who are 
getting a living but not earning it. 

The worker who earns a dollar should be 
able to buy back with it an exact dollar's 
worth of the work or labor of another man 
or other men. This would be possible if each 
man, laborer, foreman, superintendent and 
all others were paid just what they earned 
by labor of hand and brain. 

The wage question is an important one. 
But if every man had to earn what he got, 
the wage question would be settled. 

You can help build a new Public Opinion 
which shall insist that every man earn his 
living. This will stamp out the idlers — the 
parasites whom the earners are now sup- 
porting. 

"Education is the only interest worthy the 
deep, controlling ancciety of the thoughtful 
inan. JJ — Wendell Phillips. 

01 



Chapter XI 

Work and Wages 

"For the laborer is worthy of his hire." — New 
Testament. 

EMERSON is credited with saying "the 
man who writes a better book, preaches 
a better sermon or builds a better 
mouse trap than his neighbor, though he 
build his house in the woods, the world will 
make a beaten path to his doorway." That 
is, the man who does better work than his 
fellowmen, whether of brain or brawn, will 
be sought out and paid more for the products 
of his industry. 

The value of a man's work, translated into 
wages, is dependent largely upon the char- 
acter of his work. The law of supply and 
demand very largely controls the wages of 
the worker. Artificial laws or conditions 
may be created that will interfere for a time 
with the natural law of supply and demand ; 
but in the long run, natural laws must pre- 
vail over man-made laws. 

A proper adjustment of wages can be 
made if based on supply and demand. If 

92 



money or MEN? 



there is a surplus of positions in any com- 
munity, the earning power of each position 
is reduced. The supply is greater than the 
demand. In time, the number of positions 
is likely to be adjusted through natural 
causes. 

Some doctors are better than others, and 
so far as possible people pick out the best 
doctor. The best doctors will be employed 
often, and some of the less skillful ones will 
find it impossible to make a living. They will 
be compelled either to go into some other 
line of work or they will have to move to 
some other community where there are not 
enough doctors. 

If there are too many farmers, farm pro- 
duce gets so cheap that many men quit the 
farms for work which pays better. This will 
gradually cause prices of farm products to 
again rise. Farming may then again be- 
come more profitable than other work and 
men again go back to the farm. Some care- 
fully worked out plan for distribution of 
work, based upon the natural law of supply 
and demand, would therefore make work as 
well as wages steadier. 

This book is not the theories nor the opin- 
ions of some one writer. It is rather a com- 

93 



money or MEN? 



pilation for the benefit of the worker. To 
show him the true relation of money and 
men. 

Walter Rauschenbusch, author of "Chris- 
tianity and the Social Crisis," was first 
pastor of a church in New York City and 
later a professor in a Theological Seminary. 
He stands not in the midst of the hurly- 
burly and strife of money vs. men, but looks 
at the entire question as a student. He is 
not; a manual laborer himself. He would 
seem to be naturally antagonistic to labor. 
Yet see what he has to say regarding "Work 
or Wages." As a student and a writer, he 
gives his opinion from his own viewpoint. 
Yet he places the value not on money but 
on men. Rauschenbusch says : 

"In the agricultural stage of society the 
chief means of enrichment was to gain con- 
trol of large landed wealth ; the chief danger 
to the people lay in losing control of the 
great agricultural means of production, the 
land. Since the industrial revolution, the 
man-made machinery of production has as- 
sumed an importance formerly unknown. 
The factories, the machines, the means of 
transportation, the money to finance great 
undertakings, are fully as important in the 

94 



money or MEN? 



mpdern process of production as the land 
from which the raw material is drawn. Con- 
sequently the chief way to enrichment in an 
industrial community will be the control of 
these factors of production ; the chief danger 
to the people will be to lose control of the 
instruments of industry. 

"That danger, as we saw in our brief 
sketch of the industrial revolution, was im- 
mediately realized in the most sweeping 
measure. The people lost control of the 
tools of industry more completely than they 
ever lost control of the land. Under the old 
system the workman owned the simple tools 
of his trade. Today the working people 
have no part nor lot in the machines with 
which they work. In capitalistic production 
there is a co-operation between two distinct 
groups; a small group which owns all the 
material factors of land and machinery; a 
large group which owns nothing but the per- 
sonal factor of human labor power. In this 
process of co-operation the propertyless 
group is at a fearful disadvantage. 

"No attempt is made to allot to each work- 
man his share in the profits of the joint 
work. Instead he is paid a fixed wage. The 
upward movement of this wage is limited by 

05 



money or MEN? 



the productiveness of his work; the down- 
ward movement of it is limited only by the 
willingness of the workman to work at so 
low a return. His willingness will be de- 
termined by his needs. If he is poor or if 
he has a large family, he can be induced to 
take less. If he is devoted to his family, and 
if they are sick, he may take still less. The 
less he needs, the more he can get; the more 
he needs, the less he will get. This is the 
exact opposite of the principle that prevails 
in family life, where the child that needs 
most care gets most. In our family life we 
have solidarity and happiness; in our busi- 
ness life we have individualism — well, not 
exactly happiness. 

"The statistics of wages come with a 
shock to any one reading them with an active 
imagination. 

"But the real wages are not measured by 
dollars and cents, but by the purchasing 
power of the money. That the necessaries 
of life have risen in price in recent years is 
familiar enough to every housekeeper. 
Wages, too, have risen in some trades. Very 
earnest efforts have been made by experts 
to prove that the rise in wages has kept pace 
with the rise in prices, but with dubious re- 

96 



money or MEN? 



suits. * * * Hence, if wages had remained 
apparently stationary, they had actually de- 
clined. 

"The purchasing power of the wages de- 
termines the health and comfort of the 
workingman and his family. It does not de- 
cide on the justice of his wage. That is 
determined by comparing the total product 
of his work with the share paid to him. The 
effectiveness of labor has increased im- 
mensely since the advent of the machine. 
The wealth of the industrial nations conse- 
quently has grown in a degree unparalleled 
in history. 

"The laborer has doubtless profited by 
this in common with all others. He enjoys 
luxuries that were beyond the reach of the 
richest in former times. But the justice of 
our system will be proved only if we can 
show that the wealth, comfort, and security 
of the average workingman in 1906 is as 
much greater than that of the average work- 
ingman in 1760 as the wealth of civilized 
humanity is now greater than it was in 1760. 
No one will be bold enough to assert it. The 
bulk of the increase in wealth has gone to a 
limited class who in various ways have been 
strong enough to take it. Wages have ad- 

97 



money or MEN? 



vanced on foot ; profits have taken the Lim- 
ited Express. 

"Thorold Rogers, in his great work, 'Six 
Centuries of Work and Wages,' says: 'It 
may well be the case, and there is every rea- 
son to fear it is the case, that there is col- 
lected a population in our great towns which 
equals in amount the whole of those who 
lived in England and Wales six centuries 
ago, but whose condition is more destitute, 
whose homes are more squalid, whose means 
are more uncertain, whose prospects are 
more hopeless, than those of the peasant 
serfs of the Middle Ages or the meanest 
drudges of the mediaeval cities. 5 

"If the celebrated saying of John Stuart 
Mill is true, that 'it is questionable if all the 
mechanical inventions yet made have light- 
ened the day's toil of any human being,' it 
means that the achievements of the human 
mind have been thwarted by human injus- 
tice. Our blessings have failed to bless us 
because they were not based on justice and 
solidarity. 

"The existence of a large class of popula- 
tion without property rights in the material 
they work upon and the tools they work 
with, and without claim to the profits re- 

98 



money or MEN? 



suiting from their work, must have subtle 
and far-reaching effects on the character of 
this class and on the moral tone of the peo- 
ple at large. 

"A man's work is not only the price he 
pays for the right to fill his stomach. In his 
work he expresses himself. It is the output 
of his creative energy and his main con- 
tribution to the common life of mankind. 
The pride which an artist or professional 
man takes in his work, the pleasure which a 
housewife takes in adorning her home ; afford 
a satisfaction that ranks next to human love 
in delightsomeness. 

"One of the gravest accusations against 
our industrial system is that it does not pro- 
duce in the common man the pride and joy 
of good work. In many cases the surround- 
ings are ugly, depressing, and coarsening. 
Much of the stuff manufactured is dishonest 
in quality, made to sell and not to serve, and 
the making of such cotton or woolen lies 
must react on the morals of every man that 
handles them. There is little opportunity 
for a man to put his personal stamp on his 
work. The mediaeval craftsman could rise 
to be an artist by working well at his craft. 
The modern factory hand is not likely to 

99 



money or MEN? 



develop artistic gifts as he tends his ma- 
chine. 

"It is a common and true complaint of 
employers that their men take no interest 
in their work. But why should they? What 
motive have they for putting love and care 
into their work? It is not theirs. Christ 
spoke of the difference between the hireling 
shepherd who flees and the owner who loves 
the sheep. Our system has made the im- 
mense majority of industrial workers mere 
hirelings. If they do conscientious work 
nevertheless, it is a splendid tribute to human 
rectitude. 

"Slavery was cheap labor: it was also dear 
labor. In ancient Rome the slaves on the 
country estates were so wasteful that only 
the strongest and crudest tools could be 
given them. The more the wage worker ap- 
proaches their condition, the more will the 
employer confront the same problem. 

"The finest work is done only by free 
minds who put love into their work because 
it is their own. When a workman becomes 
a partner, he 'hustles' in a new spirit. Even 
the small bonus distributed in profit-sharing 
experiments has been found to increase the 
carefulness and willingness of the men to 

100 



money or MEN? 



such an extent that the bonus did not dimin- 
ish the profits of the employers. 

"The lowest motives for work are the de- 
sire for wages and the fear of losing them. 
Yet these are almost the only motives to 
which our system appeals. It does not even 
hold out the hope of promotion, unless a man 
unites managing ability to his workmanship. 
The economic loss to the community by this 
paralysis of the finer springs of human 
action is beyond computation. But the 
moral loss is vastly more threatening. 

"The fear of losing his job is the work- 
man's chief incentive to work. Our entire 
industrial life, for employer and employee, 
is a reign of fear. The average working- 
man's family is only a few weeks removed 
from destitution. The dread of want is 
always over them, and that is worse than 
brief times of actual want. 

"It is often said in defense of the wage 
system, that while the workman does not 
share in the hope of profit, neither is he 
troubled by the danger of loss; he gets his 
wage even if the shop is running at a loss. 
Not for any length of time. His form of 
risk is the danger of being out of work when 

101 



money or MEN? 



work grows slack, and when his job is gone, 
all his resources are gone. 

"In times of depression the misery and 
anxiety among the working people are ap- 
palling; yet periodical crises hitherto have 
been an unavoidable accompaniment of our 
speculative industry. The introduction of 
new machinery, the reorganization of an in- 
dustry by a trust, the speeding of machinery 
which makes fewer men necessary, the com- 
petition of cheap immigrant labor, all com- 
bine to make the hold of the working classes 
on the means of life insecure. That work- 
ingmen ever dare to strike is remarkable 
testimony to the economic pressure that im- 
pels them and to the capacity of sacrifice 
for common ends among them. 

"While a workman is in his prime, he is 
always in danger of losing his job. When 
he gets older, he is almost certain to lose it. 
The pace is so rapid that only supple limbs 
can keep up. Once out of a job, it is hard 
for an elderly man to get another. Men 
shave clean to conceal gray hairs. They are 
no longer a crown of honor, but an indus- 
trial handicap. A man may have put years 
of his life into a business, but he has no 
claim on it at the end,, except the feeble 

102 



money or MEN? 



claim of sympathetic pity. President Eliot 
thinks that he has a just but unrecognized 
claim because he has helped to build up the 
good-will of the business. 

"There is a stronger claim in the fact that 
the result of his work has never been paid 
to him in full. If, for instance, a man has 
produced a net value of $800 a year and has 
received $500 a year, $300 annually stand 
to his credit in the sight of God. These divi- 
dends with compound interest would amount 
to a tidy sum at the end of a term of years, 
and ought to suffice to employ him at his old 
wages evem if his productive capacity de- 
clines. But at present, unless his employer 
is able and willing to show him charity, or 
unless by unusual thrift he has managed to 
save something, he becomes dependent on 
the faithfulness of his children or the charity 
of the public. * * * Fear and insecurity 
weigh upon our people increasingly, and 
break down their nerves, their mental buoy- 
ancy, and their character." 

"This constant insecurity and fear per- 
vading the entire condition of the working 
people is like a corrosive chemical that dis- 
integrates their self-respect. For an old 
man to be able to look about him on the 

103 



money or MEN? 



farm or business he has built up by the toil 
of his life, is a profound satisfaction, an 
antidote to the sense of declining strength 
and gradual failure. 

"For an old man after a lifetime of honest 
work to have nothing, to amount to nothing, 
to be turned off as useless, and to ea^ the 
bread of dependence, is a pitiable humilia- 
tion. I can conceive of nothing so crushing 
to all proper pride as for a workingman to 
be out of work for weeks, offering his work 
and his body and soul at one place after the 
other, and to be told again and again that 
nobody has any use for such a man as he." 

I close this chapter with this question: 
Isn't it time we thought over these things? 
Isn't it time for each one of us to get others 
educated? To make Public Opinion on this 
subject so strong that men will be considered 
first and not money? 



"Education is the only interest worthy the 
deep, controlling anociety of the thoughtful 
man/' — Wendell Phillips. 

104 



Chapter XII 
Education 

"Slavery is but half abolished, emancipation is 
but half completed, while millions of freemen with 
votes in their hands are left without education." 
—Robert C. Winthrop. 

THE previous chapters of this book have 
merely shown the breadth of our prob- 
lem, without positively giving any 
remedies. But in the closing chapters of the 
book, I would feel remiss in my duty if I did 
not clearly set forth my own convictions re- 
garding money or men. I must, with every 
right and clear thinking individual, take my 
stand on the side of men and against money 
— and especially against money in the hands 
of the few. 

Money in the hands of the few means 
power in the hands of the few. It means 
government by the few and not by all. Such 
a condition is directly opposed to the theory 
of our republican form of government. 
Until money is made subservient to the uses 
of all men, we shall never have true democ- 
racy. The answer to this entire question to 
my mind is education — the education of all. 

105 



money or MEN? 



Preliminary to and necessary for the edu- 
cation of all men is shortened working hours 
and adequate wages; shorter hours being 
etven jnore necessary than an increase in 
wage. The education of the schools is but 
a preliminary training for the broader edu- 
cation of life. This broader education can 
not be obtained by men who work long hours 
for low wages. Such men merely exist— 
they don't live. Men who merely exist not 
only cannot educate themselves ; they cannot 
get into a condition of either mind or body 
where they are capable of receiving an edu- 
cation when offered. 

Leisure must be made possible for the 
working class. Living conditions must be 
made comfortable. It should be possible to 
give to every man opportunities for true 
education. 

We are all supposed to have an effective 
voice in our Government as a representative 
Government — a government by and with the 
consent of those governed. The success of 
our Government and the success of our 
social institutions depend then upon the in- 
telligence of the voters. 

Every man has been given a vote and 

106 



money or MEN? 



every woman should be given a vote and 
will be before many more months have 
passed. But every man should be given 
more than a right to vote. He should be 
allowed to educate himself so he can vote 
intelligently. The education of the worker 
helps not only the worker but society at 
large. 

The individual should not be limited to 
education merely in his own work. This 
may enhance his value to the employer, but 
does not assure him getting as much as he 
earns. Such education may be for the ben- 
efit of "money" but not for the benefit of 
men. 

To vote intelligently, a machinist needs 
more than an education about his own work. 
It is a good thing to make the machinist 
more efficient in his work, through educa- 
tion. It is of much greater value to make 
the machinist a more valuable man by giving 
him an education outside his work. 

It may be necessary to reduce the number 
of universities and higher schools of learn- 
ing, and increase the number of secondary 
schools to give to every man and every 
woman the proper education, an education 
which fits them to take their rightful place 

107 



money or MEN? 



in a democratic society. But I do not def- 
initely suggest this plan. I insist rather on 
the education of every individual, so that 
each one may be in a position where he 
will read and think. Public opinion will do 
the rest. 

The man of any age, cannot on his own 
narrow experience make wise decisions. He 
must have the benefit of knowledge and ex- 
perience of othei^ men who have preceded 
him. He must know something of the de- 
velopment and history of man. From the 
time this earth on which we live was a ball 
of burning gas, down to the present time, 
many stupendous things have occurred. 
And a condensed knowledge of these things 
is an education without which the individual 
is prevented from taking his part in human 
society as today constituted. 

We have tried to give a basis of some of 
this knowledge in this book. History re- 
peats itself. We can profit from the lessons 
learned in past generations. This becomes 
an education through which we are able to 
better the society in which we live. Every 
man should know something of underlying 
causes. Not every man can be an astronomer, 
but every man can have some knowledge of 

108 



money or MEN? 



astronomy. It would be an economic waste 
to train every man and every woman to be 
a doctor, yet every man and every woman 
should have some knowledge of the human 
body. Because it is within the human body 
that the individual lives while passing 
through his earthly existence. Some knowl- 
edge should be had of economics and of gov- 
ernment, of philosophy and sociology be- 
cause these things are necessary for right 
thinking and for clear understanding. They 
go to form an education and an educated 
man can be of more use not only to himself 
but to his fellowmen. 

We sometimes class knowledge as prac- 
tical and theoretical. All knowledge is 
practical in that all knowledge can be ap- 
plied to the advancement of the welfare of 
society. An astronomer has his value and 
place as well as the artisan or the farmer, 
and so of other occupations. 

Unfortunately some are unfit for any 
work of life but their percentage is exceed- 
ingly small when compared with those who 
are misfits. Some, because they have never 
had the opportunity for an education, 
are unable to engage in the work of life for 
which they are most fitted. You cannot fit 

109 



money or MEN? 



a square peg into a round hole. You can- 
not fit a man who is naturally a mechanic 
into a position as a waiter in a restaurant, 
without making of him a man unfit for his 
work. Universal education would aid the 
individual powerfully in finding his proper 
life work. 

What a tremendous loss to civilized so- 
ciety in a man who naturally would make a 
good physician, but who is compelled by 
force of circumstances to become a railroad 
conductor! The reverse is just as true. A 
good railroad conductor is an absolute neces- 
sity in modern life. For circumstances to 
force him to become a physician is most dis- 
astrous. As a doctor he will be the cause of 
misery and even death. Not because he does 
not want to do what is right but because he 
is not fitted to do what is right. He is a 
square peg in a round hole. 

When speaking of broader education for 
every man, I am not unmindful of the fact 
that special education or training which 
makes the worker more able to do his work 
with greater ease and efficiency, is a good 
education. But without other education, 
it benefits the employer a hundredfold what 
it benefits the worker. Many businesses, 

no 



money or MEN? 



many industries are training and educating 
their workers so that they can earn a better 
living and demand a higher wage. But it is 
not often done for the benefit of the men — 
but for the benefit of money — profits. The 
motive behind business is to make money. 
One of the ways of making money breed 
money is to increase the efficiency of the 
worker by educating him along the lines of 
his work. 

I see the wisdom of doing this from the 
business viewpoint which is a money view- 
point. The danger in this kind of education 
is that it is done in order to make money. 
Whereas all education should be done from 
the broad viewpoint of making men. 

Probably we all will admit the value of an 
education to every one — an education broad 
and liberal, and of value to a man in his 
work, and in his moral and intellectual 
growth. How are we to give every man this 
education so greatly to his benefit, and for 
the benefit of society at large? 

No one can yet say that we have not made 
wonderful progress in the matter of educa- 
tion. One of the desires of the forefathers 
of this country was that education should be 
free for all. The little red school house, the 

111 



money or MEN? 



higher secondary 1 schools, the seminaries 
preparatory to college work to be later re- 
placed with high schools, our colleges, our 
universities — all are evidence that education 
in this country of ours, is one of the things 
that has been given careful and earnest 
thought, which has led to action. 

Education is being offered but it is not 
possible for every one to accept. We are 
too apt to say or think that we do not be- 
lieve that a large proportion of the workers 
care for an education. It is probably true 
that a large majority of workers have but 
little desire to gain a liberal and higher edu- 
cation. But how terrific has been the strain 
on the workers! If we could but put our- 
selves in the place of the other man, we 
would understand that a man or woman who 
lives out the most of his life fighting for a 
mere existence, has neither the physical nor 
mental strength to get an education when it 
is offered. This is true to a large extent for 
their children also, and their children's chil- 
dren. Their living surroundings, their social 
condition has been such as to starve out of 
their mentality any desire for education; 
even if they were in a position to get the 

112 



money or MEN? 



money necessary to see them through the 
higher schools of learning. 

It seems then that adequate wages are nec- 
essary. It will make living easier so that the 
worker will have) a mental condition such 
that he will desire and then accept an edu- 
cation. 

Money and leisure mean increased wages 
and shorter hours. Shorter hours can be 
made a reality. Increase of wages is often 
a false increase because the value of wages 
must be measured by the purchasing power 
of the dollars which constitute the wage. 



"Education is the only interest worthy the 
deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful 
man." — Wendell Phillips. 

113 



Chapter XIII 
Organization 

"In union there is strength." 

—Motto of the Irish Earl Mount Cashel. 

HOW can we get this money and leisure, 
which must be secured before the 
great mass of people strongly desire 
education and are capable of mentally re- 
ceiving it? The money which is necessary 
for accepting such an education is not given 
willingly, as history shows. Such leisure and 
such money must be taken. But money is 
power and there is only one thing stronger 
than money power and that is organized 
man power. Man singly and alone can do 
nothing as against the power of money. But 
man united with other men for a common 
purpose can accomplish more than the power 
of money. 

The single fine wire, one of the hundreds 
used] to form the steel cable of enormous 
strength has little strength or holding power 
in itself. But when these fine strands of 
wire have been woven together, the strength 
of the combination is tremendous. 

114 



money or MEN? 



The one man, the individual man, is but 
the single wire strand. Organized men be- 
come the steel cable able to withstand the 
most terrific strains. Organization can and 
will get for the individual worker that which 
the power of money will not willingly give. 

Organization can and has and is shorten- 
ing the hours of labor. It is thus creating 
the necessary leisure in which man can de- 
velop to the point where he can accept the 
higher, broader and fuller education. This 
education each and every man should enjoy 
not only for his own benefit, but for the ben- 
efit of society today and for those who are 
to come after him. 

I feel then that the answer to the question 
of money or men is found in men organ- 
ized. The strength and power of money for 
many centuries has been that money, the 
control of money, has been organized. If 
we are to put the value of man above money 
it must be done by the organization of men 
— whose labor makes money and capital pos- 
sible. 

No man can question the benefit that 
organized labor has been and is bound to be 
to the individual worker. Organized labor 
has already been a power for good in short- 

115 



money or MEN? 



ening hours and increasing wages; and be- 
cause of this, in bettering of the social and 
living conditions of men. Compelling prop- 
er living and working conditions for the 
workers, making human life safer, bettering 
the conditions of labor, and bringing good 
to the great mass of workers and therefore 
to our entire society — is something for which 
organization can be credited. 

While sympathizing most entirely with 
organized labor, I must admit that they 
have made their mistakes. And no one will 
admit this any quicker than the labor 
leaders themselves. In this regard, organ- 
izations of labor are no whit different from 
other organizations, not even churches ex- 
cepted. How many crimes have been com- 
mitted during the centuries that are past in 
the name of the church? How much miser y 
has been inflicted because of that organiza- 
tion? And yet we all admit that the church 
is an organization for good and holds within 
itself good for the future. 

Organizations of labor which make pos- 
sible liberal education for each and every 
man and woman, will not only benefit the 
individual members but make for better, 
stronger and more permanent organizations 

116 



money or MEN? 



of the men who work. It will also make 
organizations themselves more permanent 
because it will make more intelligent mem- 
bers in the organizations. The intelligence 
of the individual units which go to make up 
the whole will be higher and they will have 
broader vision. 

When labor organizations have reached 
the point where their individual members 
have received the broad and liberal educa- 
tion due every man, these same organiza- 
tions will be a thousand fold more powerful 
than they are today. Their strength will be 
irresistible. 

So organization of labor makes for true 
progress toward! that goal where men, all 
men, and their fullest welfare in education, 
living conditions, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness will be finally accomplished. At that 
time money, and the power that it begets, 
will be entirely subservient to man. 

No word of mine is necessary to prove to 
the individual worker the value of his organ- 
ization. What they have done and what 
they have accomplished in the comparatively 
few years that they have existed is sufficient 
proof of their value to the individual man, 
to society and to the human welfare. They 

117 



money or MEN? 



have grown in numbers, in a broadened view- 
point, in a sensible and sane judgment. And 
when the individual members of the brother- 
hoods shall have reached the mental attain- 
ment of most of their leaders, organized 
labor will become organized humanity. For 
when that time comes, every man shall be- 
come a worker and there will be no drones 
in the hive of human industry. 



"Education is the only interest worthy the 
deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful 
man/' — Wendell Phillips. 



118 



Chapter XIV 
What of the Future? 

"No man can tell what the future may bring 
forth, and small opportunities are often the be- 
ginning of Great Enterprises." — Demosthenes. 

WE DO not look for a reversal of pres- 
ent-day conditions. Nothing will 
happen over night so that tomorrow 
we shall awake to find that money and men 
have assumed their right relationship. 

As we look back over the centuries that 
have gone, and review the histories of ancient 
and modern people, we are impressed always 
with the fact that progress takes time. We 
may hasten the advance, but the advance 
must be step by step. It depends very 
largely upon our own attitude toward money 
or men. 

Ferrero, the author of "Ancient Rome 
and Modern America," says that "There is 
a further lesson to be learned by us moderns 
from the history of the decadence of the 
Roman Empire ; and that is, not to mistake 
the glamour of the external manifestations 
of wealth and power for signs of real wealth 
and power. A civilization is not always in 

119 



money or MEN? 



reality richer and stronger in times when it 
bears the most visible marks of so being; we 
are rather apt to find that when it is most 
dazzling in outward seeming, its decadence 
has already begun." 

Money and wealth does not at any time 
measure the true greatness of a race or a 
nation. It is the moral and physical and 
spiritual qualities of men that go to make 
up the measure of a nation's greatness. The 
riches, the wealth, the money of Rome with 
its corrupting influences is what led Rome 
to its destruction. There is a lesson for us 
in this experience of mighty Rome, a warn- 
ing for great America. 

However, I feel optimistic. I feel that we 
can learn and profit by the mistakes of 
others. Both the written and unwritten his- 
tory of the world shows us that nations and 
races have come, risen to their height, gone 
down and disappeared forever. We can 
do the same or we can benefit by their 
examples. It is possible for modern civili- 
zation to advance from one stage to another 
in a progress which shall lead us ever on- 
ward to a higher state of civilization. 

Under a chapter entitled "An Era of 
Moral Progress," Dr. Wallace, to whom 

120 



money or MEN? 



reference has been made previously in this 
book, outlines what to his mind is neces- 
sary if we are going to make any true 
progress. After reciting some of the evil 
products of the social conditions which have 
been created by ourselves in the course of a 
single century, he says, "We have seen it 
going from bad to worse, and have applied 
petty remedies here and there during the 
whole period; but the evils have continued 
to increase. It has now become clear to the 
more intelligent of the workers that if we 
wish to improve it — if we wish to prevent it 
from getting even worse than it is — we must 
deal with the root-causes of the evil and, so 
far as possible, reverse the conditions which 
are so demonstrably bad, such hideous fail- 
ures. And fortunately, this is by no means 
so difficult as it may seem to be, because a 
large body of our thinkers and a consider- 
able number of our workers see clearly what 
these root-causes are, and, less clearly, how 
to remedy them. They will, however, give 
their energetic support to any Government 
that devotes itself to the task of remedying 
them. The following are my own views as 
to how the problem must be attacked in or- 
der to solve it thoroughly and permanently. 

121 



money or MEN? 



THE ROOT-CAUSE AND THE REMEDY 

"If we review with care the long train of 
social evils which have grown up during the 
nineteenth century, we shall find that every 
one of them, however diverse in their nature 
and results, is due to the same general cause, 
which may be defined or stated in a variety 
of different ways: 

"(1) They are due, broadly and gener- 
ally, to our living under a system of uni- 
versal competition for the means of exist- 
ence, the remedy for which is equally uni- 
versal co-operation. 

" (2) It may be also defined as a system 
of economic antagonism, as of enemies, the 
remedy being a system of economic brother- 
hood, as of a great family, or of friends. 

"(3) Our system is also one of 
monopoly by a few of all the means of exist- 
ence; the land, without access to which no 
life is possible ; and capital, or the results of 
stored-up labor, which is now in the posses- 
sion of a limited number of capitalists and 
therefore is also a monopoly. The remedy 
is freedom of access to land and capital 
for all. 

"(4) Also, it may be defined as social 
injustice, inasmuch as the few in each gen- 

122 



money or MEN? 



eration are allowed to inherit the stored-up 
wealth of all preceding generations, while 
the many inherit nothing. The remedy is to 
adopt the principle of equality of opportun- 
ity for all, or of universal inheritance by the 
State in trust for the whole community. 

"These four statements of the existing 
causes of all our social evils cannot, I be- 
lieve, be controverted, and the remedies for 
them may be condensed into one general 
proposition: that it is the first duty (in im- 
portance) of a civilized Government to or- 
ganize the labor of the whole community for 
the equal good of all; but it is also their first 
duty (in time) to take immediate steps to 
abolish death by starvation and by prevent- 
able disease due to insanitary dwellings and 
dangerous employments, while carefully 
elaborating the permanent remedy for want 
in the midst of wealth." 

"For we brought," said the Apostle Paul 
in that wonderful letter to Timothy "noth- 
ing into this world and it is certain we can 
carry nothing out. In having food and rai- 
ment let us be therewith content. But they 
that will be rich fall into temptation and a 
snare, and into many foolish and hurtful 
lusts, which drown men in destruction and 

1S3 



money or MEN? 



perdition. For the love of money is the root 
of all evil." 

Conversely speaking, cannot the love of 
men be the root of all good? 

In your own thoughts keep men upper- 
most — and money secondary. Be of the 
brotherhood of men which shall make of 
money a servant. For in so doing you live 
for self in the truest sdnse of the word. 
Helping lift men means helping yourself. 



"Education is the only interest worthy the 
deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful 
man." — Wendell Phillips. 

124 



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